When first-time vegans replace meat and dairy with more fruits and vegetables, they notice some major differences in their bodies.
- If you’ve eaten meat and dairy for most of your life, going vegan can lead to significant changes within your body.
- A well-balanced vegan diet may have benefits for cardiovascular health, helping to prevent heart disease, stroke and reducing the risk of diabetes.
- The first thing that someone starting a vegan diet might notice is an energy boost from replacing processed meat with fruit, vegetables, and nuts.
- Many benefits of veganism can be offset by deficiencies if diet isn’t managed carefully from the beginning.
- Several months into a vegan diet, people can notice acne clearing up, as well as a drop in stored up vitamin D.
The first few weeks
The first thing that someone starting a vegan diet might notice is an energy boost with the removal of the processed meat that is found in many omnivorous diets, in favor of fruit, vegetables and nuts. These foods will boost your vitamin, mineral and fibre levels and thinking ahead about your meals and snacks rather than relying on convenience foods can help sustain consistent energy levels.
As time without animal products grows into weeks, there is likely to be a shift in bowel function either towards a more regular, healthy pattern or an increase in bloating, wind and loose motions. This is due to the higher fibre content of a vegan diet and the simultaneous increase in carbohydrates that ferment in the gut and can cause irritable bowel syndrome.
This may settle eventually and could lead to some positive changes in the diversity of the bacteria in the colon, depending on whether a vegan diet is made up of processed food and refined carbohydrates or is well planned and balanced. Although not proven yet, scientists believe that a high species diversity for gut bacteria could be beneficial for the whole system, in the same way that ecosystems are stronger as a result of lots of different types of species thriving.
Three to six months later
Several months into a vegan diet and some people may find that the increase in fruit and vegetables and reduced processed food can help acne to clear up. By this point however, your stores of vitamin D might be dropping as key sources of it in our diet come from meat, fish and dairy, and it isn’t always noticeable until it’s too late. Vitamin D isn’t well understood but it’s essential in keeping bones, teeth and muscles healthy and deficiency has been linked with cancer, heart disease, migraines and depression.
This is because vitamin D stores are only thought to last about two months in the body. How long your stores last will depend on the time of year that you decide to go vegan because the body can make vitamin D from sunlight. Making sure you eat plenty of fortified foods or take a supplement is important, especially in the winter months.
Within a few months, a well-balanced vegan diet which is low in salt and processed food may have impressive benefits for cardiovascular health, helping to prevent heart disease, stroke and reducing the risk of diabetes. As the intake of nutrients like iron, zinc and calcium are reduced on a vegan diet, our bodies get better at absorbing them from the intestine. The adaptation may be enough to prevent deficiencies in some people but not for everyone, in which case supplements can fill the shortfall.
From six months to several years on
Approaching a year on a vegan diet, vitamin B12 stores may become depleted. Vitamin B12 is a nutrient that is essential to the healthy functioning of blood and nerve cells and can only be found in animal products. Symptoms of B12 deficiency include breathlessness, exhaustion, poor memory and tingling in the hands and feet.