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Anemia is a disorder of the body either being unable to produce enough red blood cells or being unable to produce high-quality red blood cells or being unable to produce enough hemoglobin or being unable to extract, carry, and store iron, or when the body destroys red blood cells (hemolytic anemia).
Everything I will present in this video – feel free to discuss it with your physician if it applies to you, I deliver my knowledge and I can prove that it works for me, but you may find that it doesn’t work for you for whatever reason. But it is my duty to deliver this information such that you can make educated choices and hold more wholesome, more involved conversations with medical personnel.
Fun facts:
As of 2023, anemia is a widespread condition affecting a quarter of the world population and prevailing among women (31% as opposed to 17% among male population). Iron-deficiency appears to be the cause of anemia in 66% of cases. Anemia is a condition that not only affects one’s quality of life but can also reduce life expectancy and promote malignant processes in the body due to lack of oxygen, so this condition should be addressed in a timely fashion and using safe and adequate methods. The problem is that people often think that their tiredness, depression, inability to perform physical exercise are normal, something that is their inherent trait and do not undergo proper diagnosis for anemia allowing it to progress, not knowing what quality of life they could potentially have should they actually take corrective measures. This is why it is so important to be well-equipped with knowledge about anemia and go through regular checkups.
Are vegans and raw vegans at a higher risk of developing anemia? It was proven that we aren’t mainly owing to increased doses of vitamin C coming with plant foods that help converting non-heme iron into its absorbable form given that iron supply is sufficient. However, as always, unless we characterize what vegan and raw vegan diets represent in each individual case, we cannot conduct an objective, well-founded discussion beyond the opinion level, granted that anemia is still a common condition among vegans as well as among other groups of people.
In this video, I would like to give you a comprehensive guide to:
How to diagnose anemia or risk of developing anemia
How to treat anemia
Why is it so important?
The main role of iron in the body is enabling oxygen transport from the respiratory system to all cells in the body. Oxygen is a crucial element as it participates in cellular respiration for creating adenosine triphosphate (the energy molecule). Hypoxia = progressive decline of all functional tissues through cells simply dying.
Building blocks supplied with nutrition:
Iron coming from food
Vitamin C (changes iron valence and makes iron more accessible and absorbable by forming a chelate)
Magnesium (Participates in erythropoiesis)
B12 (Participates in erythropoiesis)
B9/Folate (Participates in erythropoiesis)
Amino acids, proteins for forming:
Transferrin (transports iron through the blood to the tissues: liver, spleen, bone marrow) - requires tyrosine, histidine
Ferritin (intracellular protein that stores iron for when the body needs it) - requires valine, leucine, isoleucine
Blood work markers:
Red blood cell count (erythrocytes are the cells that carry hemoglobin that carries oxygen bound to iron contained in hemoglobin molecules)
Hematocrit test (should be normal indicating adequate RBC production)
Mean corpuscular volume (too small indicates iron deficiency, too large indicates B12/B9 deficiency)
Red Cell Distribution Width (variations in the RBC size, should be under 16%, otherwise may indicate B12/B9 deficiency)
Hemoglobin (a protein that carries oxygen and other gases from lungs to the cells of the body, should be within a normal range which varies for men and women, if it is high, it may indicate lack of oxygen and if it is low, it may be another indicator of anemia) - it makes up most of the dry mass of the RBC, it is being synthesized in 2 parts by different constituents of the immature RBC and its assembly happens in the bone marrow.
Iron (shows iron concentration in blood, may increase in response to ingesting iron shortly before the test, so it must be tested in conjunction with other metrics if you need to investigate if you have the anemia and if it is iron-deficient)
Ferritin (should be approximately your weight in kg +70, but may depend on your level of physical activity and size, can artificially increase in response to inflammation or hemolytic anemia, so must be studied along with other parameters)
Transferrin (a protein that picks up iron from the absorption site, i.e., at intestinal cells, and carries it to the liver, spleen, and bone marrow; must be high, over 250-300 mg/dL)
Iron binding capacity (should be on a lower side, shows how much your blood is craving to bind iron, can indicate iron deficiency)
Mean corpuscular hemoglobin (avg amount of hemoglobin contained in each RBC, must be over 32 pg)
Mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration (avg amount of hemoglobin contained in a group of RBC, must be over 36 g/dL)
White blood cells (low may indicate iron deficiency in conjunction with other parameters)
Saturation (amount of iron in transferrin, must be high, over 45%)
Hgb A1C must be low, under 5.7% - eradicate all refined sugar (from synthetic sugars, syrups, monosaccarides, and isolates to fruit juices) from your diet because it can cause glycation of hemoglobin that makes it useless and short-lived
B12, B9 levels (deficiency leads to inability to produce functional RBC capable of carrying oxygen, also causes enlargement of RBC making them incapable of penetrating into the smaller capillaries)
What to do?
If no systemic or genetic disorders influencing synthesis of red blood cells, are present, treatment of anemia relies on the following actions:
Ensure adequate supply of necessary nutrients
Ensure good absorption of those nutrients
Ensure there is no abnormal hemorrhage in the body
Ensuring adequate supply of iron, folate, vitamin C, magnesium, and protein can be done by introducing these foods:
Hemp seeds, lentils (sprouted or boiled), leafy greens (kale, dandelion, parsley, dill, spinach, collard greens, chard, bok choi, broccoli and its varieties), nuts and seeds.
Examples:
60 g of hemp contain 27%RDV of iron and 19 g of complete protein
30 g of pumpkin seeds contain 25%RDV of iron and 7 g of complete protein
100 g of sprouted lentils contain 18%RDV of iron and 9 g of complete protein
60 g of parsley (mostly water) contain 21%RDV of iron
100 g of dandelion greens contain 17%RDV of iron
4 sheets of nori contain 7%RDV of iron
Supplementation of B12 in a form of methylcobalamin or hydroxocobalamin to maintain B12 levels at above 500 pg/mL may be necessary.
To ensure good absorption of iron:
Avoid coffee and tea as they not only contain tannins that can bind to iron, but they also contain caffeine that can lead to stress, adrenal burnout that exhausts a lot of vitamin C coming with food.
Avoid smoking and if possible, move away from the areas where carbon monoxide air pollution is especially high because products of burning destroy hemoglobin.
Avoid alcohol at all costs, not only because it is a major disruptor of nearly any function in the body, a mutagen, it destroys brain, blood vessels, microbiome, esophagus, etc., but because it also dissolves a lipid coating on the surface of red blood cells causing them to clump together and simply get destroyed, along with the capillaries that those clumps clog and tissues that were supplied via those capillaries.
Allow your gut to heal. This is a natural process when you switch to a balanced raw diet, but there may be some considerations:
A. Make sure to avoid foods that you may be sensitive to, paying special attention to lectin-containing foods, avoid foods that can irritate your gut lining, which can be garlic, particularly hot peppers.
B. Make sure to get enough Omega 3, by either receiving assimilable forms directly from seaweed or by consuming enough ALA through flax seeds, walnuts, and hemp daily. Note that conversion rate of ALA into EPA and DHA is lower in men than in women due to estrogen. Omega 3 not only has anti- inflammatory action on the gut lining, but it also participates in formation of the cell membranes, including those of red blood cells, so it is important to consume a lot of it to ensure that erythrocytes are elastic. I eat 30 g of flax and 60 g of hemp daily that, corrected by the average conversion rate, provides me more than the recommended daily value of EPA and DHA.
C. Make sure you are not vitamin D deficient. It is one of the prominent deficiencies among the world population and not everyone knows that vitamin D is essential for retaining healthy gut lining and microbiome. You cannot have a healthy gut without an adequate supply of vitamin D. Ironically, ingested vitamin D supplements cannot be properly absorbed and converted into the hormone if the gut is unhealthy.
D. Consider adding probiotics and fermented foods into your diet.
E. Quit all refined sugars.
Consume raw plants as they supply large amounts of vitamin C. Cooking destroys it along with most other water-soluble vitamins, so a raw vegan diet has a great advantage not only because of the gut healing effects, but because it supplies super doses of vitamin C, as opposed to any other diet, vegan or not, that primarily consists of cooked foods. It is pretty much the only diet that can supply excess vitamin C that is essential for any modern person given the amount of stress and environmental factors that may lead to increased uptake of vitamin C for repairing the tissues. I hit 1000%RDV of vitamin C daily.
Chew your food well to not waste the nutrients.
Avoid calcium carbonate pills and antacids. In general, if you need to supplement calcium, make sure you do so in a regulated fashion and that you did your best to supply it with food.
Check for excessive bleeding.
Endometriosis, PCOS (menstrual bleeding stronger than normal), blood vessel fragility (bruising, varicose), ulcers, hemorrhoids, kidney stones (blood in the stool or urine), blood-sucking internal parasites can lead to excessive blood loss that may be overlooked. Good news is that a well-balanced raw vegan diet can successively reverse all of these issues by restoring one’s hormonal health, fortifying the blood vessel walls, reducing acidity of the urine and uric acid. Many raw foods, such as bitter and aromatic greens and pumpkin seeds, act as anti-parasitic treatments, which, combined with huge fiber supply, makes it hard for the intestinal parasites to stay in the body. Besides, parasites typically thrive off undigested proteins that are not present in the raw vegan body because plants carry simple proteins that readily break down into the amino acids.
In conclusion...
A well-balanced, nutritionally complete raw vegan diet with adequate supplementation of B12 and vitamin D3 (if you live in the northern regions) may become your solution in resolving a persistent anemia due to restoring healthy gut lining and gut microbiome and by providing lots of vitamin C, folate, non-heme iron, magnesium, and Omega 3. It can also aid in reversing the conditions associated with non-physiological hemorrhage, further helping you in overcoming anemia. An extra note here is - remember to work out and walk outside! Compressing the bones and getting lots of oxygen will definitely be beneficial!
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