The purpose of this study is to verify the relation between vegetarian diet and the risk factors of cardiovascular disease. The subjects of the study were 127 Buddhist nuns (age:23～79y) from Oonmoon Temple in Choungdo District Gyeongsang Bookdoo Province and 118 Buddhist nuns practicing Zen meditation at Soodeok Temple in Yeosan District Chongcheong namdoo Province. For control subjects, 235 healthy female adults (age:23～79y) were selected. They were the teachers, the nurses of the hospital of Gyeongsang National university and the housekeepers living in chinju Gyeongsang Namdoo Province. The period of this study was from October 1996 to February 1997. The contents were consisted of food consumption survey, anthropometric measurement, estimating amount of energy expenditure, physical activity and clinical examination. Results were summarized as follows: The mean ages of the subjects were 44.2y for vegetarians and 40.5y for non-vegetarians, respectively. average body mass index (BMI) of vegetarians and non-vegetarians were 22.47 adn 21.08, WHR 0.85 and 0.84, percentage of body fat 28.79 and 26.55 respectively. The average duration of vegetarian diet of the vegetarians was 13.16 years. Levels of total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, atherogenic index (AI), diastolic blood pressure, blood sugar and HDL-cholesterol of non-vegetarians were significantly higher (p<0.01) than those of vegetarians, but ration of HDLcholesterol/total-cholesterol was lower in non-vegetarians. In both of subjects, BMI, WHR, RBW, %BF had sig-nificant positive correlations with triglyceride, total cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol and AI. BMI, WHR had sig-nificant positive correlation with systolic blood pressure. BMI, WHR had significant negative correlation with HDL-cholesterol. In summary, vegetable diet can contribute to lowering serum lipid level, atherogenic index (AI),systolic blood pressure, blood sugar.