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Comment by HedonicEscal8r | Hacker News Reader

Essentially none. Creatine supplementation is a good idea for most people, especially vegans/vegetarians.

Why especially those?

Your body can synthesize creatine, so it's not essential, but meat is a source of exogenous creatine and eating it results in higher stored creatine levels, which is slightly good for muscle power endurance in the ~5-15 second effort range. Supplementing produces slightly higher relative improvements in creatine levels in vegetarians and vegans than it does in people who eat meat.

Because they lack all kinds of substances that meateaters get plenty of.

I'm a vegan, and I'm surprised this is downvoted, because it's true. There are plenty of things that you need to be careful to not become deficient in on a vegan diet: protein (in appropriate amino acid balances), creatine, b12, the good Omega 3s (from algae preferably; flax is missing DHA entirely), calcium, iron, to name a few.

You're fine if you take daily algae oil, multivitamin, iron supplement, calcium, and creatine (without going overboard on any of it) and making sure to get lots of protein from balanced sources (eating a ton of soy is actually not a bad idea, because it's a balanced protein), but I wouldn't recommend somebody who doesn't want to have to worry about their nutrition to go vegan. Enough omnivores are already deficient in vitamins and minerals, and veganism only makes it harder.

This is false, it's only B12 you need to supplement (and meat-eaters also get B12 through supplements, just indirectly).

Most people are not deficient in vitamins and minerals - the benefits of supplementing are highly exaggerated. Evidence is not good.

I beg to differ. Magnesium and vitD (especially in colder climates, or for indoorsy people) deficiencies are very, very, common.

There's lots of research on this.

I dont believe you protein remark. Protein deficiency is virtually unheard of.

I consider creatine and O3s a bio-hack more than a supplementation.

B12: yes. But most meat people eat has been fed a B12 supplement as well (as live stock do not live on dark soil that is abundant in B12; they live on concrete floors and eat factory-produced animal feed... with B12 added to it).

Calcium: nope. Magnesium is more important IMHO; IFF you do not get 2 portions of low-oxelate (most are low-oxelate) leaves per day. I try to get the leaves.

Iron: mostly a thing for menstruating women.

Zink: mostly a thing for ejaculating men.

As a vegan (for moral reasons) I take D3, B12, some Magnesium and sometimes Zink as supplements. I do bio hack myself: creatine, high DHA O3s, but also recreational/experimental drugs.

I agree veganism makes it harder. But I dont think that's what veganism is about: it is an ethical stance. If you are "eating a vegan-compatible diet, but not vegan" we should use another word: plant based diet (which includes fungi, yes, weird).

Thank you, and don't forget zinc.

Also have to be careful that your protein sources (mainly legume-derived?) don't have too much copper, nickel, heavy metals.

I have no beef (sorry not sorry) with vegans or vegetarians, but indeed, be careful with your nutrition.

Forgot that vegans also tend to get tons of carotene, which even though the body downregulates conversion to retinol, isn't great (but omnivores and vegetarians also often overdo dairy so there's that).

If I just look around me, i see my omni friends and fam all struggling with overweight and some have expressed problems with constipation and high-BP.

Myself OTOH, lean, low-BP (without any bad symptoms), dont even know what constipation should feel like.

Nobody gets fired for supplementing vegans.

Not vouching for creatine, but in general, humans get some vital nutrients from animal consumption. Vegans have to take some B-vitamins for best health due to what they don't get from meat. I assume creatine is the same.

Where do those animals get their B12 from, do you think? (Hint: they don't synthesize it either, they get it from their diet)

Today, because our food / water are so sterilized (good thing!), we don't typically get much bacterial B12 from unclean root vegetables, drinking from streams, etc. So yes, we need to supplement today. Because of advances in cleanliness.

B12 is about hygiene (not drinking from muddy puddles), not about an inherent problem with veganism.

Because meat is the best source of creatine from diet.

Well, if vegetarians and those of the Vegan religion don't get enough creatine it is most likely related to them not partaking of an important source of the substance: meat.

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