Can a Vegan Diet Cause Parkinson's Disease?

The other day a new client came to see me for hypnotherapy.  She has Parkinson's Disease.  She has been a vegan for over 40 years.  As a medical intuitive, I sometimes receive information about a person's medical situation.  She was not seeing me to identify the root cause of her Parkinson's, but in working with her, it came to me spontaneously.  It had something to do with her vegan diet and lacking specific nutrients.  I talked to her about it at the end of the session.  She is a vegan for animal rights reasons and is not willing to incorporate dairy into her diet, even though no animal is killed when milked.  She explained to me how cows cry when their babies are taken from them, which is what happens on dairy farms.  She told me that cows will break out of their farms to walk 100 miles to their calves who have been taken from them.  Hearing this made me want to cry.  I had chills throughout my body when she told me these sad stories of animal mistreatment.  The horrors that animals are put through by humans upsets me very much.  We have to advocate for animal rights.  That is not my calling, but I know it's many others' calling and I fully support whatever changes they can make to improve the livelihoods of animals.

So, we have a dilemma.  I believe humans need to eat animal foods to be healthy AND we need to figure out a way to treat animals with respect, love and honoring.  In the end, we cannot ignore the often dramatic and drastic ways our bodies are calling out to us to feed us differently.

So, I went on the internet to see if there was a correlation between vegan diets and Parkinson's Disease and found this:
http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-10979/what-i-wish-everyone-knew-about-parkinsons-disease.html

I am not a research scientist, nor do I read through medical journals, so I am not informed on this topic. I am just sharing a little story from my life with one client, not making any conclusive statements.  It's observation.  It's food for thought.

"High Cholesterol" Is a Myth

Cholesterol is present and necessary in every cell in your body.  It is critical for all cellular functions in the body.  The brain contains 25% of the cholesterol in your body.  Only animal foods contain cholesterol, plants do not.  Therefore, a vegan diet is detrimental to health.  While your body does make cholesterol when you do not eat enough of it, it is still extremely difficult to make enough to support your bodily functions properly.

In this article, Dr. Stephanie Seneff says, "Heart disease, I think, is a cholesterol deficiency problem...."
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/01/16/cholesterol-regulates-cell-signaling.aspx

Here is an article which explains that trans fat is responsible for heart disease, not cholesterol:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/05/11/cholesterol-trans-fats.aspx

In 2001, I was working for The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) in Washington, DC.  I was writing a report for Congress on nutritional policy.  I was writing a proposal to create legislature for the labeling of fats on food labels.  At that time, I believe, only total fat was listed on food labels.  I was advocating for the breakdown of fats so that people knew which types of fats were present in the food.  I wanted to have trans fats listed.  My boss told me that people were not smart enough to understand what trans fats were and that we were not going to use that language in our proposal.  She said we should just list saturated fat.  She even wanted me to include trans fat with the saturated fat on the labels (meaning lump them together in the same category!).  What??!!  She wanted me to dumb down the information so much so that it was not even correct.  Saturated fat is a healthy fat, which I knew at the time, but CSPI did not think so.  Their intention was to identify the unhealthy fat in foods, but they did not want to list trans fat separately, because they didn't think people would understand.  Well, we know now that trans fat has made the news and people know it's no good.  And we also know that nowadays trans fat IS listed on food labels.  I quit that job before even finishing that report to Congress, so I can't take credit for the current food label ;)  But my point is that even consumer groups are not advocating wisely for proper nutritional information and we know we CANNOT trust the media for nutritional information either.

But finally, the good news is public - cholesterol is good for you!

Here's another article about it:
http://blog.paleohacks.com/shouldnt-avoid-cholesterol/

Go eat some butter!

Veganism Is a Philosophy and Why I Had to Eat Butter for Two Days

The decision to be a vegan is based on philosophy, ideals, and beliefs.  It's a carefully calculated decision, not an instinct.  In the spring and summer of 2011, I experimented with my diet.  I ate a vegetarian diet for a while (maybe around 2 months) and then a vegan diet for two months.  One day, I had the most intense craving for butter.  I mean, I HAD to eat butter.  There was no stopping me.  I had to eat butter on crackers for two days in order to satisfy my intense craving.  Does that sound normal to you?  Well, it doesn't to me.  My body was screaming for animal fat.  

That's almost when my vegan experiment ended, but I pushed it a little longer.  Then one day, I was driving home and got the most intense craving for meat.  I drove right passed my home and straight to Whole Foods in total desperation to eat meat.  This was not a mental idea, this was my body feeling an overwhelming need, an instinct.  I had planned on getting a piece of steak to cook at home, but when I got into the store, I went to straight to the hot foods bar, piled chicken and meat into a container, got in my car and ate those bad boys like a starving person who had not eaten food in a month!  I could not shovel that animal protein into my mouth fast enough.  Does that sound normal to you?  Well, it doesn't to me.  That's because there is nothing normal about eating a vegan diet.  I have never had such intense cravings and a desperation to eat butter and meat like that in my life.

The body is intelligent and will find a way to get what it needs if you listen to it.

There are no healthy human vegan populations in the world and there never have been.  I know many former vegans and vegetarians who got very sick on those diets and when they changed their diets to an omnivorous diet, they healed.  You can find numerous personal stories like that on the internet and also just by talking to former vegans and vegetarians.  

Here's an article about 5 brain nutrients found only in meat, fish and eggs, not plants:
http://authoritynutrition.com/5-brain-nutrients-in-meat-fish-eggs/

Eating is an instinct.  Eating animal foods is normal for humans and has been since we were created.  Contriving your diet based on philosophy and mental constructs to something that has not been a part of humans' dietary history can have dangerous, detrimental effects on physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing.

I am deeply compassionate about the reasons people choose to be vegan.  I understand that animals are mistreated in factory farming and production.  It disturbs me more than I can say.  I buy animal foods from local farms where they treat the animals well.  Of course, not all my food is bought there, but I do what I can.  Animal rights is an enormous issue about which I care very much, but I also know what being healthy entails and in my opinion that includes a diet which includes animal foods.  The animal rights issues on this planet need to be addressed, but in my opinion being vegan is not the answer.