<story><title>More Millennials Are Having Strokes</title><url>https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-millennials-are-having-strokes/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>simonsarris</author><text>Various deficiencies are definitely a problem in my friend population, where many of them are vegans.&lt;p&gt;The vegan diet is a diet of deficiencies, and since none of them are particularly careful about what they eat, I worry that it is making them all worse off. Iron and B12 may be the most obvious, but also D3, calcium, zing, animal based nutrients like creatine, and I&amp;#x27;m sure others.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this becomes a touchy subject with them very quickly, and most of them believe &amp;quot;being vegan is healthier,&amp;quot; but are uninterested in engaging with or supporting this claim.</text></item><item><author>weinzierl</author><text>Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has been associated with strokes in young people. IDA doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily have pronounced symptoms and a diagnosis with a blood sample is simple and cheap. It is often considered a &amp;quot;female disorder&amp;quot; but it&amp;#x27;s only slightly more common in females than males.&lt;p&gt;tldr: Have your blood checked.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.hindawi.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;crinm&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;487080&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.hindawi.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;crinm&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;487080&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: As most follow up comments seem to center around diet as a cause, I wanted to point out that there are several other causes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>dgacmu</author><text>&amp;gt; The vegan diet is a diet of deficiencies, and since none of them are particularly careful about what they eat&lt;p&gt;First off, B12 is important, but most vegan milk-substitute things have 25% or 50% of the US RDA of B12 per serving.  Not all - a lot of almond milk isn&amp;#x27;t supplemented with B12 (to which i grumble).  They&amp;#x27;re often also iron-supplemented.  Here, for example, is the nutrition label for Silk Organic Unsweetened Soy Milk:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;silk.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;nutrition&amp;#x2F;SK_2443_nleas_OrganicSoyUnsw.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;silk.com&amp;#x2F;sites&amp;#x2F;default&amp;#x2F;files&amp;#x2F;products&amp;#x2F;nutrition&amp;#x2F;SK_2...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Note the vitamin D and calcium in there as well.  The FDA is generally clever about the requirements they put on things -- the potential for such deficiencies is well-known, and so is addressed at a few places.&lt;p&gt;Creatine isn&amp;#x27;t a necessary nutrient - our kidneys and livers synthesize it.&lt;p&gt;Finally, I, at least get a lot of &amp;quot;zing&amp;quot; in my diet by being creative about what we cook.  (Sorry, couldn&amp;#x27;t resist)  Zinc, however, you should pay attention to, but eating a diversity of beans and nuts (and tofu) covers it quite well.&lt;p&gt;Seriously, though:  It&amp;#x27;s not hard to have the bases covered.  If you&amp;#x27;re really concerned and not just concern-trolling, sit down with your friends and a copy of Cron-o-Meter, which is one of the most comprehensive meal nutrition profilers around.  It&amp;#x27;s what I used when figuring out the overall layout for our family&amp;#x27;s meals, and it did lead me to a few cheats -- like favoring molasses as a sweetener, throwing flaxseed in place of part of the flour in a bunch of recipes, etc., to make sure we were hitting all the targets.  Useful software.</text></comment>
<story><title>More Millennials Are Having Strokes</title><url>https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/more-millennials-are-having-strokes/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>simonsarris</author><text>Various deficiencies are definitely a problem in my friend population, where many of them are vegans.&lt;p&gt;The vegan diet is a diet of deficiencies, and since none of them are particularly careful about what they eat, I worry that it is making them all worse off. Iron and B12 may be the most obvious, but also D3, calcium, zing, animal based nutrients like creatine, and I&amp;#x27;m sure others.&lt;p&gt;Unfortunately, this becomes a touchy subject with them very quickly, and most of them believe &amp;quot;being vegan is healthier,&amp;quot; but are uninterested in engaging with or supporting this claim.</text></item><item><author>weinzierl</author><text>Iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has been associated with strokes in young people. IDA doesn&amp;#x27;t necessarily have pronounced symptoms and a diagnosis with a blood sample is simple and cheap. It is often considered a &amp;quot;female disorder&amp;quot; but it&amp;#x27;s only slightly more common in females than males.&lt;p&gt;tldr: Have your blood checked.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.hindawi.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;crinm&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;487080&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.hindawi.com&amp;#x2F;journals&amp;#x2F;crinm&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;487080&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;EDIT: As most follow up comments seem to center around diet as a cause, I wanted to point out that there are several other causes.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>danenania</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m not vegan, but the counterargument I&amp;#x27;ve heard is that an unbalanced omnivore diet can also lead to deficiencies&amp;#x2F;nutrition problems, and that actually the average vegan diet is more balanced overall than the average omnivore diet, so it&amp;#x27;s unfair to single out vegans when eating a healthy and varied diet is a challenge for everyone.&lt;p&gt;In other words, you should probably be just as worried about your non-vegan friends who eat too much meat, not enough leafy greens, not enough vitamins, etc.</text></comment>