Page 121 - Healthy (March - April 2020)

BALANCE

It’s vegan.

It looks good on Insta.

But is it good for you?

Experts say deficiencies linked to vegan diets and other ‘healthy’ regimes
are impacting our brains. So what are the risks of a restrictive diet?

W O R D S B Y L A U R A P O T T E R
eganism has enjoyed a bumper couple of
years, with those eschewing animal products
quadrupling in ive years. But it’s not all rosy. A
V number of prominent experts have been voicing
serious concerns that there are potential serious health risks What’s actually happening is lots of people are developing
associated with being entirely plant-based – which are not horrible deiciencies and coming of it – because it’s made
being properly communicated to the general public, if at all. to sound too simple.’
So who are these experts? First, Professor Mary Fewtrell Derbyshire worries we’re charging headlong into veganism,
of University College London told an audience at the with a poor understanding of the implications. ‘These diets
2017 meeting of the European Society for Paediatric can be lower in vitamin B12, choline and omega-3 fatty acids
Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition that ‘it is – nutrients that are important for brain development and
diicult to ensure a healthy and balanced vegan diet in health, and become even more important at key life stages
young infants, and the risks of getting it wrong include such as pregnancy, when foetal brain development is also
irreversible cognitive damage.’ taking place,’ she says. ‘These diets could be unintentionally
Then, in August 2019, public health nutritionist impacting the health of the next generation.’
Dr Emma Derbyshire, writing in the journal BMJ
Nutrition, Prevention & Health, warned that we could THE RISK
be overlooking a potential choline crisis thanks to VITAMIN B12
‘accelerated food trends towards plant-based diets’. The most widely discussed risk of a vegan diet is a vitamin B12
And, in September 2019, Professor Alice Stanton told deiciency – as this is only found in animal foods, including
an audience at an event organised by the Institute for meats, ish, poultry, eggs and dairy, or those rich in micro-
Global Food Security that nutritional risks had ‘taken organisms such as yeast.
over from cigarette smoking as the biggest killer’. Plus, ‘Vitamin B12 is essential for brain health and is
according to her research, red meat causes ‘less than fundamentally unavailable on a vegan diet, except through
one per cent of nutrition-related deaths’. supplementation or fortiication,’ says Medlin. ‘Vegans can
None of these experts are questioning the ethics of get it via nutritional yeast and fortiied foods, but there’s now
a plant-based diet, but they are all incredibly worried a growing a stigma in the vegan community about relying
about potential health pitfalls, and the fact that these on fortiied vegan products, because people are trying to
are routinely underplayed. ‘I’m massively concerned get away from processed food. In reality, processed foods
about the oversimpliication of veganism,’ says are their best bet.’
dietitian Sophie Medlin. ‘If the big proponents of Medlin says that up to 50 per cent of vegans are B12
vegan diets were more honest about the risks, more deicient, and the impacts are far-reaching. ‘People can
people would be able to stay vegan, and if that’s the start to develop brain fog, anxiety and depression as well as
right thing for them ethically, that would be better. bowel problems, because B12 is essential for nerve function,
and you’ve got lots of nerves in your bowel,’ she explains.
The risks for children and infants is even more concerning,
causing developmental delay, seizures, failure to thrive,
reduced IQ, intellectual disability and even brain atrophy.
‘During pregnancy and up to the age of two, a child’s brain

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