Objective: To carry out an integrative literature review to assess the impact of a vegetarian
diet on chronic noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). Methodology: An integrative literature
review was carried out, using as the research's guiding question: "What are the impacts of a
vegetarian diet on non-communicable chronic diseases?". The bibliographic survey took place
from July to December 2022, with a search being carried out in the databases of the U.S
National Library of Medicine (Pubmed), Scientific Electronic Library Online (Sciello) and
Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences ( LILACS). As inclusion
criteria, scientific articles were selected with availability of the full text, which are free and
published in the period from 2015 to 2022 with the descriptors: diet vegetarian and chronic
diseases; cardiovascular; diabetes; cancer; obesity; kidney disease, which are available in
Health Sciences Descriptors – DeCS, using the Boolean operator “AND” between them. After
applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 930 articles were located. Of these, 913 who did
not meet the eligibility criteria were excluded. 17 were selected for reading in full, with a
final sample of 5 articles, which were grouped according to common themes in axes to be
explored. Results: From the interpretation of the findings, 4 themes were constructed: 1)
Diabetes, 2) Cardiovascular diseases, 3) Chronic Kidney Disease and 4) Colorectal cancer.
The results showed positive and significant impacts on the prevention and treatment of these
diseases, such as reducing blood glucose, controlling weight and associated diseases,
improving the lipid profile and reducing cardiovascular diseases, as well as reducing the
progression of chronic kidney disease and preventing colorectal cancer, showing that this is a
subject in need of more research for more precise conclusions.
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