Other supplements to consider if a non-thriving vegan person wishes to keep the diet
completely plant-based: Multi-vitamin/mineral supplement to assure adequacy of minerals like selenium,
manganese, iodine and zinc Supplemental taurine and carnitine and/or creatine (amino-acid-based supplements
available at natural food stores) Supplemental DHEA after patient has salivary cortisol and DHEA levels measured. 156
(Amounts will be considered later.)Yet, despite these counseling successes, I am aware that there is a significant population of long-
term vegans who, despite their best efforts—and mine—to optimize their vegan diets, still
remain pale and underweight, unable to achieve the robust health they seek. When, out of
frustration with years of trying to overcome their nutritional challenges with various
supplements and vegan food regimens, a number of them reluctantly but finally reverted to
adding some meat or eggs back into their diets, they often achieved significant benefits—
sometimes with dramatic results. Increased energy levels and muscle mass gains became
evident in many of them.These people are nutritional enigmas to me and have made me theorize about what factors may
be at work to prevent achieving nutritional goals on a vegan diet—and I present my
speculations in the sections that follow:However, before I present my ideas about possible mechanisms that may explain the “vegan
failure-to-thrive syndrome” I must assert that the problem ultimately lies with my lack of
nutritional understanding, rather than an inherent lack of nutritional adequacy in a well-
planned, whole-foods vegan diet. I am a general practitioner in private practice, not a nutritional
biochemist. I feel strongly, that with proper scientific study and clinical application, a 100%
plant-based diet can be made to meet virtually every person’s nutritional needs—if we but
knew enough about human physiology and nutrition.It is a source of great dismay to me that in the United States, the highly-esteemed, federally-
funded National Institutes of Health consists of 27 separate institutes, like the National Cancer
Institute, the National Eye Institute, and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute—yet not
ONE of the Institutes has the word “Nutrition” in its name. If this country were really serious
about improving the health of its citizens, there would certainly be a National Institute of
Nutrition as part of the N.I.H.—and within it would be a “Division of Vegan Studies,” where(^156) Genova Diagnostics. 63 Zillicoa Street, Asheville, NC 28803, USA.
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