Zhanna Samsonova, originally from Russia and known as Zhanna D’Art on social media, could “barely walk” before she sadly died after eating a vegan diet for a decade, her friends have revealed
A popular vegan influencer who lived off an exotic fruit diet could “barely walk” and hadn’t drunk water for six years before she died, her horrified friends have claimed.
Zhanna Samsonova, originally from Russia and known as Zhanna D’Art on social media, had been on a raw plant-based diet for ten years that consisted solely of fruits, sunflower seed sprouts, fruit smoothies and juices. In the days before her death, she shared a chilling Instagram post which said: “Life is meaningless.”
Her friends said her eating habits had become worryingly restrictive in the last few months of her life and she passed away on July 21 from a “cholera-like infection” exacerbated by “exhaustion of the body by a vegan diet”, her mother Vera Samsonova told Russian newspaper Vechernyaya Kazan. Speaking with Newsflash, an unnamed friend of Zhanna said they saw her a few months ago in Sri Lanka “looking exhausted.”
Her friends say she sadly was suffering from an eating disorder that had seen her replace all water in her diet with vegetable and fruit juices. They claim she was practically bed-bound as it would take her “several minutes” to walk up one step on a staircase.
Ms Samsonova’s official cause of death has not yet been determined despite her mother’s allegations, as her family try to get her body back to Russia. Despite the potential downsides to Samsonova’s diet, many of her devoted followers refused to believe her eating choices led to her death, instead claiming that she was killed by chemicals in the fruit she ate.
The anonymous friend continued: “They sent her home to seek treatment. However, she ran away again. I lived one floor above her and every day I feared finding her lifeless body in the morning. I convinced her to seek treatment, but she didn’t make it.” Zhanna once said: “Although I have a lot of experience as a raw food chef. I love creating my own recipes and inspiring people to eat healthier.”
A raw food diet can have multiple health benefits including weight loss, improved heart health and a lower risk of diabetes – if eaten in a balanced diet, but there are significant downsides to a solely raw diet according to Healthline. These include deficiencies in calcium and vitamin D, which are needed for strong bones. This could cause B12 levels to plummet, which can result in anaemia, nervous system damage, infertility and, somewhat paradoxically, heart disease. A study published earlier this month in the Journal of Nutrition found that 100 per cent of participants on a raw vegan diet ingested less than the recommended 2.4mcg of vitamin B12 per day.
* Article From: Mirror Online