Can a Vegan Diet Be Healthy? A Literature Review

Ctrl+F &quot;B12&quot;. Here&#x27;s a quoted reference from the article:<p>&gt; [V]egans exhibited a higher estimated prevalence of inadequacies for some nutrients, in particular vitamin B12 (69.9% in men and 83.4% in women &lt;55 years of age), compared to meat-eaters. […] Our study highlighted that, overall, self-reported vegetarians and vegans may meet nutritional recommendations.<p>Those numbers are crazy high. I am not an expert in any of this, so take this with a healthy dose of skepticism, but I wonder if a vegan diet can be considered healthy without supplements given the current range of available non-animal B12 sources. I think there are some algae sources but I&#x27;m not sure you can get enough B12 without getting too much of something else. There&#x27;s also the question of how efficiently you absorb the nutrients in the food; I heard it&#x27;s harder to absorb B12 from algae than from cheese for example. Happy to be shown evidence for or against...

I’ve been a vegan for 35 years and although I think it’s more healthy. It’s likely the biggest health benefit that someone would get going vegan in the past would be that most processed ‘crap’ food is not vegan and you are forced to make healthier choices.<p>I find it annoying that the rise in veganism means there are far more bad choices I can make: big chain burgers, ready meals, cakes, cheesy pizzas are all now available to me.

From the first glance at the title I expected a worse article.<p>But actually it was unexpectedly non partisan. It read like a good and readable literary review. My SO studied nutritional science (actually Ecotrophology) and I gained quite some insights by reading lots of the studies directly. A lot of them I recognized in this article.

I have been vegan for 6 months now and have seen remarkable health improvements, all verified by lab testing.<p>It has been very amusing having long discussions with my cardiologist trying to explain to him the changes I did as he could not believe the data he was getting.

Maybe a good place to ask vegetarians and vegans: how do you know if your diet is healthy?<p>I&#x27;m myself eating vegetarian since 2016 with no issues. But I never check if my food is balanced and wouldn&#x27;t know if I would be missing some proteins or nutriments.<p>Do you check your blood regularly, or do you have other approaches to ensure that you have an adequate diet?

Probably the most comprehensive review of medical research papers and literature related to vegan&#x2F;plant-based diet: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nutritionfacts.org" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;nutritionfacts.org</a>

A few noticeable (and non-scientific!) points from someone who&#x27;s dabbled with both sides over the last year (spent ~1&#x2F;3 of the year as a vegetarian&#x2F;vegan):<p>- I eat a lot more fruits, salad, and vegetables as a vegan (duh!)<p>- The diversity of the food I eat _increases_ as a vegan (even though there are less options to eat)<p>- I do feel the need to supplement protein (which I hate to do and stay away from when non-vegan)<p>- I also supplement B12 as a vegan

Pleasantly surprised to see a health-related article written by a vegan where a genuine, honest effort is made to explain scientifically what the actual benefits and risks are, and what the actual flaws are in various vegan&#x2F;non-vegan diets.

Many many comments here overlook that there <i>are</i> very good natural and vegan sources of B12:<p>Shiitake mushrooms are an excellent source of B12 (and it&#x27;s in the same form as the B12 from beef, liver, or fish, so it has a very good bioavailability). It&#x27;s not widely known even by vegans.<p>For both vegans and omnivores, the easiest way to keep an adequate level of B12 is with supplements. Omnivores have them fed to their steaks&#x2F;cheese&#x2F;milk during intensive farming.<p>The best of best B12 supplement is hydroxycobalamin, if you can find it in sublingual tablets (it&#x27;s not readily available in every countries, but you can import it).

Osteopenea and osteoporosis are huge concerns for young women. Bone demineralisation post menopause comes off the strong bones laid down in youth. If you come off a low base it&#x27;s higher risk.<p>Twenty or more years hence problem

Any diet can be healthy as long as you hit your micronutrient targets for your age and sex and keep calories at your tdee if you want to maintain or slightly lower if you want to lose weight.

I&#x27;ve seen my mother and father dwindle in health while following a &#x27;Whole Food Plant Based Diet&#x27; over the last five years. They followed it to a T, going to see Campbell more than once. They have both suffered G.I. issues, connective tissue problems. My mother&#x27;s osteoporosis is now bordering life threatening. Once fish and dairy were re-introduced, they got better. The level of zealotry made it difficult to talk to them about their condition.

The author notes it well:<p>&gt; In Western studies, vegans had lower body mass index, lesser waist circumference, reduced blood sugar levels, lower low-density lipoprotein (protein that transfer lipids around the body; fats are a kind of lipid) cholesterol (a type of lipid), less body fat &amp; lower blood pressure than omnivores.<p>My question is, do the studies shown account for body weight? Sure if you are comparing your average USA citizen (40.0% of which are obese) to a group that happens to be fit, you are definitely going to have much better outcome of the later.<p>First part of the question would be, does veganism help with obesity? Or is it just correlated to it for other reasons? Conjecture: it seems no surprise that people who spend a significant amount of time worrying about their diet have on average much better BMI, but maybe the diet itself also helps.<p>Second part would be, when adjusting for BMI, does veganism also show these benefits? Or are they benefits related only to BMI? There seem to be no separation of the benefits of being vegan vs the benefits of being fit when the health outcome is being discussed.

Can someone disapprove me, as i think we have some bacteria in our bowels that consume carbs and produce majority of amino acids, so in the end our basic requirement for proteins are satisfied.<p>As someone who grow up in rural russia in 90s, meet was a rare usually on holidays&#x2F;birthday, and i believe i grow up perfectly healthy, ofc it&#x27;s a fallacy to look at personal experience, but even tho.

Can it be healthy? Yes. Is it healthy by default, is it typically healthy? Not really.

My rule of thumb: when there are whole civilizations that exist on a diet, you will be okay.<p>In this case the Jain are a prime example.

Im not a vegan, but it absolutely can be healthy. They say 84% of vegans return to meat. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psychologytoday.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;blog&#x2F;animals-and-us&#x2F;201412&#x2F;84-vegetarians-and-vegans-return-meat-why" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.psychologytoday.com&#x2F;us&#x2F;blog&#x2F;animals-and-us&#x2F;20141...</a><p>But this is because they aren&#x27;t following a healthy approach. Moreover, unfortunately there we found out that there are basically no non-meat sources of B12. Except for the original bacteria. There were some almost-b12 options people were trying but failed. So even if you supplement b12, it&#x27;s likely to be sourced via a meat source.<p>Worse yet, B12 isnt the only problem. There are 3 others that vegans often dont get in their diet because to get enough would require ungodly amounts of rather unusual foods like flaxseed or seaweed. Like how much can you really eat of those?<p>That said, there is a valid path of veganism. You can find the proper nutrition. You have to thoroughly investigate how to do it but you can.

Fingers crossed that Betteridge&#x27;s law doesn&#x27;t apply in this case.

Fasting (AKA not eating anything for 40 days) can be healthy. The real question is: Is it sustainable, even in edge cases like childhood or pregnancy?<p>Even rural chinese sustained on rice and salt, need a chicken once a week.