I read an article today by Dr. Joel Fuhrman titled DHA Deficiency Linked to Parkinson’s. Fuhrman is an advocate of the vegan diet and has written several excellent books on health, diet and fasting, one of which I know has a meal plan that includes meat for those who eat it. (As an aside, I no longer advocate a vegan diet.)
A few of the books he’s written include:
- Eat to Live: The Revolutionary Formula for Fast and Sustained Weight Loss
- Fasting and Eating for Health: A Medical Doctor’s Program for Conquering Disease
- Eat For Health: Lose Weight, Keep It Off, Look Younger, Live Longer (2 book set)
- Disease-Proof Your Child: Feeding Kids Right
Fuhrman is trained in natural hygiene, which puts him in a small group of doctors who offer the best of both worlds: an understanding of pathology and health. Natural hygiene is the biological study of practices that promote health.
The upshot of the article was that many vegans and vegetarians suffer from nutritional deficiencies, particulary vitamins B12 and D and the fatty acid DHA.
If you are a nutritarian, flexitarain, vegan, or vegetarian and you are not taking DHA or confirming your levels are adequate with blood work you are being negligent, and potentially increasing your risk of such a disease in later life. All the good efforts on proper nutrition can be undone with one deficiency such as Vitamin D, B12, or DHA.–Dr. Joel Furhman
I’ve met vegans online who insist that they get all the nutrients they need without supplementation. Maybe they can. But many others have failed to thrive on the vegan diet and have returned to eating small amounts of dairy, eggs or meat. It sometimes takes a decade or more to run your levels dangerously low in certain nutrients. And vitamin D deficiency is very common to those on all diets.
So for those of you who are vegans or vegetarians, don’t risk your health on the altar of dietary purity. Simple supplementation could prevent you from falling ill from deficiency diseases.
