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Comment by eixiepia | Hacker News Reader

Followed a vegan diet and felt great in the beginning as most people do. I made sure to do everything as recommended by vegan doctors. Slowly but surely various health problems started to show, including bad teeths. Tried to make it work, sought help in the vegan community, but it's not accepted that a vegan diet can cause health problems, so I was shunned. Being desperate and my health just getting worse, I did a radical shift to the carnivore diet and started to feel much better. Now, after 7 years on the carnivore diet, I have never been in better health. I believe this saved my life. I still have bad teeth from the vegan days, but atleast it's not getting worse.

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I do have many vegan friends (been vegan for more than a decade) and none have issues with their teeth! I wonder if the issue was more with what you were eating as a vegan rather then a plant based diet.

My wife is vegan and was top ranked body builder. She knows how to eat well. Interestingly, any medical issues she has had in the past five years have come with a recommendation to "eat less meat and exercise more" (medical staff reading instructions from a screen over the phone) I'm not vegan and I am less healthy than she is, by far. Our kid is vegetarian and is just as healthy and active as I was at her age. Everyone is different and diets impact people differently.

Obviously not helpful now but could be of interest to someone. This article has always stuck in my mind for when a well known vegan considers leaving. Turned out she needed more fat in her diet which I guess makes sense considering the naturally lean vegan diet especially when combined with raw.

http://bonzaiaphrodite.com/2015/07/when-vegans-get-sick-exce...

There is plenty of fat to be found in a vegan diet, just not meat fat. Eating intentionally is something we could all do better, no matter the diet. One of the sillier things people say when talking about vegan diets is "but protein!" Know how much protein you need for a healthy diet? Most people don't and they wildly overestimate.

What teeth issues did you run into?

I'm not on a vegan diet, or a carnivore diet, but I worry about my teeth all the time. What happened when you changed your diet? Are these teeth issues, or gum issues, or both?

Always had good teeth before. Flushing and brushing thoroughly multiple times a day. After some time on vegan diet, suddenly 4 cavities was found during a dental visit, later 7 cavities found and two teeth pulled because of excessive decay. I would then even more rigorously take care of my teeth, but the cavities and decay just continued.

I had the same problem a few years back when I tried a vegan diet for a few months. 2 teeth pulled, inflamed gums, plus as a bonus bad acid reflux (the 3 things could be related i guess). Going back to a normal diet made them better but did not fix it completely. A few months back I tried keto which did fix all those problems.

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