Newly Vegetarian- Feeling Awful

doublediamond wrote: [quote=doctorj][quote=doublediamond]
Edit: regarding iron, another myth that being vegetarian means you're at a higher risk to develop iron deficiency.

I typed 'iron deficiency vegetarian' into PubMed and found numerous of abstracts indicating vegetarians are at greater risk of iron deficiency. including this one:

Vitamin and iron status in new vegetarians.
Helman AD, Darnton-Hill I. Am J Clin Nutr. 1987 Apr;45(4):785-9.
This study assessed the biochemical status of a number of vitamins and iron in a group of new vegetarians. Values were compared with a group of omnivores of similar age. Satisfactory to high levels of serum folate, vitamin E, and riboflavin were found, and all were significantly higher in vegetarians than omnivores. Thiamin status was satisfactory in both groups although a small but statistically significant difference in favor of the omnivores was found. Serum vitamin B-12 was significantly lower in vegetarians, and iron status as measured by serum ferritin was very significantly lower in vegetarians. Pyridoxine status was similar in both groups. A number of sex differences were found in the vegetarian sample. New vegetarian women appear to be at particular risk of developing low iron stores.

New vegetarians? From what I understand, a lowering of b-12 taking a very long time. We store between 2 and 5 micrograms of vitamin B12 and only excrete a very small fraction of this each day. To see a "significantly lower" amount would take time. It's found in egg and dairy products, which vegetarians typically eat.

Regarding the iron, perhaps the results were talking about haem iron, which vegetarians would have significantly lower amounts of, since that comes from animals compared to non-haem iron which comes from plants. Haem iron from meat is bound to hemoglobin and stored in ferritin. There are different ways of measuring the body’s iron and determining whether a person has iron deficiency disorders such as anemia. The most common measures both hemoglobin levels and serum ferritin. (R S Gibson, 1990, Principles of nutritional assessment, First Edition, Oxford University Press, Ch 17, p 349-372)

The American Dietetic Association states: “Incidence of iron deficiency among vegetarians and vegans are similar to non-vegetarians therefore vegans and vegetarians are not at greater risk from this condition. Vegetarians and vegans have lower iron stores compared to non-vegetarians however their serum ferritin levels are usually within the normal healthy range.” - ADA Report, 2003, Position of the American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada: Vegetarian diets, 103, 6, p 748-765

Unless someone has a crap diet or some health problem, vegetarian or not, it's easy to eat the right amount of iron. Heck, it's even in breakfast cereals. Practically everything is fortified with iron these days.

Let me nip a potential debate in the bud. I really, really dislike debating my dietary choice, especially online. I'm sure you can find a bunch of articles supporting the opposite of the position I hold. And there's a ton of info supporting the vegetarian diet. I'm not interested in having an online debate over it though. If that wasn't your intention, my apologies, these things typically lead into that direction.

Agreed. Vitamin B12 is in many cereals, like Product 19. Statistics on meat eaters and vegetarians (who sometimes eat products made with eggs and dairy) with low iron are similar.

According to my doctor, I had much better cholesterol on a vegetarian diet (without dairy, but with eggs). The bad cholesterol went down when I eliminated all meat (except eggs with yolks) and dairy. For some reason a high meat diet was screwing my body up.

People living in New York City have easy access to diverse ethnic and unique "homemade" health store foods. So if you live in town and do your homework, you can have a good, healthy diet whether you eat meat or not.

Let's face it, both meateaters and vegetarians eat/drink a lot of crap that makes us feel crappy from time to time.

There is never a reason that a healthy American with no food allergies/intolerances who can shop at an average grocery store needs to eat bacon, sausages, ground beef, duck, steak, pork chops, and chicken skin. We eat that stuff because we LIKE the TASTE of it.

On a similar topic, I hear that we are ALL going to get diabetes and our children will go through puberty at age 5 because of all the corn syrup and hormones that are in both vegetarian and carnivore foods alike.

Anyone worried about their health should get their blood and urine work done to check for problems.

I believe that the British Medical Association has done a study on iron and anemia.

America's preoccupation with promoting meat as the main source of protein and iron is wrong. Predominantly vegetarian Asian diets have as much iron and perhaps more protein than America's diet.

As a meat eater, I feel that Americans' fear of becoming sick or death due to lack of dairy and meat, is similar to Americans' fear of death due to terrorism. It's all big industry lobbyists driving America's food pyramid.

Healthy people all over the globe eat non-American diets and live longer than the typical American.

Most Americans have the luxury of eating what they want, while in some countries people have limited food supplies. If someone only has cows and corn to eat, instead of beans and spinach, obviously they must eat cows to get iron. If I was starving and did not have typical American food, I'd eat a dog. As an American with some money and access to hundreds of grocery stores, the food and nutrient options are endless. Lucky us.

I forget who the author is, but he came up with the most elegant and succinct way of boiling down all the food advice flying around all over:

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

He further defines "food" as "something that would have been immediately identifiable to your grandmother as a food source" -- he means "nothing that's been too processed." But it strikes me that that could leave a huge gray area in there, as I come from stock that would consider crubeen to be edible (crubeen = Irish for pickled pigs' feet), and I'm not quite ready to go there yet, thanks.

Carnivore wrote: [quote=queencallipygos]I forget who the author is, but he came up with the most elegant and succinct way of boiling down all the food advice flying around all over:

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

That's by Michael Pollan, a journalist/writer, not a scientist. I don't disagree with most of his points, however, you can't really cite his opinions as scientific evidence of the type doctorj is asking for.

Oh, I wasn't saying he was providing scientific evidence. He just did a good job at distilling all the evidence down into an easily-remembered bottom-line, is all.