Edit: The other thing I wanted to say is 1 tbsp of flaxseed has 2.4g of ALA and that the adequate intake of ALA is 1.6g and 0.3g of DHA/EPA. If we assume a 10% conversion rate for both (depends on many factors and a tad high), you get 0.24g of DHA/EPA. So, 2 tbsp of flaxseed and you're good. I put it in my smoothie in the morning.
There is also a sex-linked difference between ALA conversion to DHA/EPA, with women, and women who are pregnant or brestfeeding converting significantly more ALA to DHA than men. Men were converting far less than 10% while women were converting more than 10%.
They say this and then don't address the elephant in the room: the huge fall-out rate concerning vegans going ex-vegan.
Additionally, "completely sufficient to sustain the body" is about the lowest barrier to entry one can set. People aren't interested in sustenance alone, even if you take away cultural factors.
Those numbers are ridiculously high when considering institutes are starting to push veganism but conveniently skip the fact veganism is difficult to maintain even for upper middle class people with almost everything available to them.
It's like the Scrum/Agile debate all over again, but in the form of diets. Yes, that means the diet itself may not be the problem, but good luck changing the environment.
I have also transitioned to a vegan diet, but only after studying very carefully all the available information, so besides food made from vegetables I take 10 chemical substances about which there is reasonable certainty that they are either necessary or beneficial for vegans, because the plants either do not contain them or they contain them in too small quantities, and the human body either cannot make them or it can make them only in too small quantities.
DHA and EPA are among those 10.
All these have been shown to have significantly lower levels in the body of the vegans who do not take the corresponding supplements.
Especially the need for a calcium supplementation is often overlooked, which leads to a higher risk of fractures.
now about calcium intake, if you really take a look, most of the claims are hypothetical and require further studies to comprove, as well some findings like this; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19350341/
A vegan does not need a large amount per day of calcium supplementation, but all the studies, including this one, demonstrate that a small amount of additional calcium is necessary to reduce the risk of bone fractures to the same level as for omnivores.
it is like the argument of omega-3 content of flaxseeds and chia being poor translated into useful chains of acid like DHA… all you have is to increase your intake on the ballpark of 160% rather than 100% from animal sources… which translate in having to eat the enormous amount of 3 tbsp of chia per day, so you can overcome the “inefficiency”
plus not even getting into who are the vegan people being researched on osteoporosis rate. there is vegans who survive out of pasta and soda (which contributes for osteoporosis) and those who eat a superb healthy varied diet; plus vegans who do not exercise (which contributes for osteoporosis) and those who do ETC.
Just as you say, there is evidence that it is beneficial in certain circumstances, e.g. for increasing the capacity of anaerobic effort of the vegans who train for sports competitions, but it is not clear if it is beneficial unconditionally.
The literature is abundantly clear on this.
Moreover, for substances like creatine, which can be produced in limited quantities by the human body, like also for DHA, EPA, choline or taurine, there may be large differences between individuals. Some people might not need supplements for one or more of these substances, at least when they are young, while for others supplements may be indispensable, at least when they become old.
In general, it is much more prudent to take a supplement, even when its necessity is not certain, than to not take it, because in the first case if your choice was wrong it just does not have any useful effect, while in the second case if your choice was wrong it could cause serious health problems.
I have already thought that I should try sometime in the future a creatine supplement, to see if I notice any change, but for now I cannot not see any cognitive differences between present and how I was before switching to an 100% vegan diet.
Massive claim with only one little study for a source. You are behaving like the strawman vegan right now, making ludicrous claims on nitpicked data; you are not furthering your cause by spreading disinformation online.
I don't think taking a step and claiming you just walked to the hill top counts as "effort".
>I don't see why you should go through the trouble of contradicting it without providing any sources yourself.
You don't see that pointing out the lack of adequate sourcing for a claim does not in itself require a source - because it is not a claim.
You don't see - oh yes.
Therefore this study is also one of the many which have shown that the human body has only a limited capacity of converting ALA into DHA and EPA, so that the nutritional supplements with DHA and EPA are beneficial for vegans (e.g. from oil of Schizochytrium, a non-plant non-animal unicellular living being, which is falsely named as "algae" by vendors, to sound more like a vegetable to vegan ears, if the cheaper fish oil is deemed to be unacceptable).
This study certainly does not support your claim that "a completely vegan diet, which has no DHA, is completely sufficient to sustain the body".
Yes, it is enough to have ALA in your food to avoid a quick death, but ALA is not enough to ensure a good health and a long life.
You seem to be implying here that Schizochytrium is not a vegan product, even though "non-animal" is completely sufficient to meet that criterion.
Nevertheless, I find it funny that the vendors have felt the need to use the word "algae" for marketing this product.
It is true however that while "algae" is incorrect, there is no appropriate word to name them that would be easily understood by the general public.
At most they might be called "protists", as in many biology manuals, which is a word that I strongly dislike as meaningless.
("Protists" means "the first", but among which and according to what ordering criterion? "Protist" is a word normally used with the meaning "unicellular eukaryote" a.k.a. "unicellular nucleate", but one should better use the words that are meant.)
The key thing about the ALA conversion in women is that you're not going to OD on it. Having too much DHA gives you insomnia (though, that is not such a bad thing if by circumstances, you are already sleep deprived).
I havn't seen any papers on it, but my personal experience is that the ratio of DHA to EPA is also important for mental health. EPA seems to help with smoothing out burnout and protect against spiraling into depression.