[HN Gopher] Comparison of Postsurgical Scars Between Vegan and O...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Comparison of Postsurgical Scars Between Vegan and Omnivore
       Patients
        
       Author : shadykiller
       Score  : 91 points
       Date   : 2021-03-09 18:10 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
 (TXT) w3m dump (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
        
       | odyssey7 wrote:
       | Animal protein seems to be good for wellbeing, and there's a lot
       | of overlap between veganism, wellness awareness, and alternative
       | food choices.
       | 
       | Given that and the already-existing ability to create
       | collagen/gelatin in a lab that's suitable for vegans, I've always
       | wondered why nobody has managed to get it to market as a food.
       | 
       | There's already a growing group of wellness-focused people who
       | don't want typical non-gelatin jelling ingredients like
       | carrageenan and various gums in their foods; these provide only
       | the jelling property and none of the nutrition of actual gelatin,
       | and they are associated with inflammation.
       | 
       | Edit: Maybe all of the funding is going toward grail projects
       | like synthetic beef patties that have an element of technical
       | novelty, rather than the comparatively boring process of creating
       | collagen at scale and getting FDA approval?
        
         | dkarl wrote:
         | IIRC from back when I was a vegan, and assuming what I heard
         | was correct at the time, there was a single, very popular
         | foreign supplier of "vegan" gelatin that was eventually exposed
         | as a fraud. The gelatin they were selling was of animal origin.
         | There were no competing products. Any new product will have to
         | overcome the residual mistrust from that incident.
         | 
         | Found a source for the story that matches my recollection:
         | https://aaww.org/the-vegan-marshmallow/
        
         | jfim wrote:
         | > Given that and the already-existing ability to create
         | collagen/gelatin in a lab that's suitable for vegans, I've
         | always wondered why nobody has managed to get it to market as a
         | food.
         | 
         | Outside of some pastry applications (eg. mirror cake glazing),
         | it's pretty much only used for Jell-O and aspic, neither of
         | which are particularly trendy at the moment.
         | 
         | There's gelatin and collagen in soups as part of making broth,
         | but it's not really something that people see as an ingredient.
        
           | yawnr wrote:
           | Huge demand for collagen powder as a beverage additive lately
           | though. Could definitely be a real opportunity.
        
           | ben_w wrote:
           | When I was last in the USA, I was very surprised to discover
           | all the yoghurt in the store I went to contained gelatin.
        
             | jdminhbg wrote:
             | This is a consequence of the low-fat craze that peaked in
             | the 90s but still exists. When you remove fat from yogurt,
             | you need to add sugar and gelatin back in so it has flavor
             | and texture.
             | 
             | That said, you should be able to find plenty of real yogurt
             | in the US now.
        
           | odyssey7 wrote:
           | Ah, you may not be aware of this. Collagen supplements are
           | trendy with the wellness crowd as a protein powder, and bone
           | broth is too under closely related reasoning. People who buy
           | these things are thinking, "I want my skin and tissues to be
           | healthier, so I'm going to buy collagen or bone water that is
           | full of it."
           | 
           | This study seems like it bolsters the reasoning. The market
           | for both of these options is currently closed off to vegans.
        
       | antattack wrote:
       | What's the point of having a better looking scar if you're more
       | likely to get colon cancer?
       | 
       | Also, given that study itself measured Iron and B12,
       | supplementing Iron and B12 may help scar healing w/o the (red)
       | meat eating downside.
        
         | arcturus17 wrote:
         | Note how the study compares vegan diets with omnivore diets,
         | not with salami and bologna diets.
        
         | centimeter wrote:
         | Attributing colon cancer to meat is, it turns out, complete
         | bullshit, just like most other nonsense anti-meat fear-
         | mongering (uric acid, cholesterol, etc.).
        
           | jjtheblunt wrote:
           | I'm not familiar with the data either way, so am reading to
           | learn; why do you say it's bullshit?
        
             | centimeter wrote:
             | Every time I get concerned about one of these things and
             | look it up, it turns out to have been false.
        
             | zepto wrote:
             | In context, I think it's as fair to call it bullshit as to
             | claim it as a truth.
             | 
             | It was being claimed as a truth _to rebut the implications
             | a peer reviewed study_ , but without any data to support
             | it.
        
             | steve_adams_86 wrote:
             | Before I became vegetarian I read as many papers as I could
             | about why meat is good or bad for you.
             | 
             | Unfortunately a lot of papers don't provide very good data
             | regarding what kind of meat is being eaten. At least, not
             | in what I've read; I'd love to see something better.
             | 
             | Some very specifically included processed meats which, to
             | me, invalidates the study as a study about meat. Processed
             | meats are a completely different beast. On those grounds a
             | significant number of studies I've read are hard to take
             | seriously.
             | 
             | This could be a reason people are calling it bullshit.
             | 
             | I'd love to see a study involving conscientious meat eating
             | habits in which people eat mostly vegetables, some whole
             | meats, and otherwise avoid processed foods. This is how I'd
             | want to eat if I ate meat, but it's rare to see balanced
             | studies.
             | 
             | This does, however, make some sense: most people eat
             | processed foods where these studies are done, so they're
             | relevant to a broader part of the population.
             | 
             | They should not be used to condemn meat, though.
        
         | decebalus1 wrote:
         | > What's the point of having a better looking scar if you're
         | more likely to get colon cancer?
         | 
         | I don't think it's worth going into the extremes with this.
         | Omnivore doesn't mean a buttload of red meat.
        
         | xvedejas wrote:
         | I'm curious here: I am under the impression, possibly due to
         | outdated info, that the issue with red meat was specifically
         | that cooking it at high temperatures creates carcinogens (this
         | being why bacon is especially bad). Would it be possible to
         | avoid carcinogens by slow cooking all red meat at lower
         | temperatures?
        
         | da_big_ghey wrote:
         | Others already said below research on red meat and colon cancer
         | correlation is imperfect. It not to distinguish processed meats
         | with not processed. It not consider for difference in cook
         | methods producing potential carcinogen, say grill vs. bake.
         | Also many people maybe are not predisposed to colon cancer,
         | they prefer to have better healing and take a risk such like
         | that.
         | 
         | Also study is compare of vegan. Not veggietarian. This mean
         | potential beenfit from dairy. ALso potential white meat not
         | reds. You have made a link from red meat to scar outcome where
         | above study no created one. This is bad thinking.
         | 
         | Also you are say for supplementing remedy all problem on
         | vegans. This supplements expensive need much research. Maybe
         | hard for getting right. Why benefit from this and use vegans
         | diet? If same results are come from meat. There am also chance
         | for benefits not iron and b12 related but maybe collogen and
         | other meat things.
        
         | yokaze wrote:
         | > Also, given that study itself measured Iron and B12,
         | supplementing Iron and B12 may help scar healing w/o the (red)
         | meat eating downside
         | 
         | Unless iron is the source of the (red) meat eating downside.
        
         | ofrzeta wrote:
         | It's not even clear what's meant by "red meat". In all the
         | studies they mix up consumption of unprocessed and processed
         | meats. In my totally non-scientific metastudy I came to the
         | conclusion that it's essentially processed meat with nitrates
         | that poses the major health threat.
        
         | mytailorisrich wrote:
         | Personally I think that a good, healthy diet is one that does
         | not require me to take supplements to counter deficiencies.
         | 
         | Obviously that does not mean that eating a lot of meat is good,
         | but having to take supplements is not good, either.
        
       | bane wrote:
       | When I was younger and training very heavily in some sports, I
       | experimented a bit with different diets. Bottom-line the more
       | meat heavy my diet, the faster I would heal from injuries --
       | radically so. For a while I went on a low-carb diet and ate a
       | _very_ heavy animal protein diet. I shed pounds, had absolutely
       | unstoppable stamina, had far _fewer_ injuries, stretching
       | improved, basically never bruised, and healed from sports
       | injuries that would have taken weeks in days. I felt like
       | Wolverine.
       | 
       | I also felt like a grease grenade all the time and got tired of
       | the diet which is why I stopped, but it was definitely superhuman
       | for me.
       | 
       | I felt the worst in this sports context was when I experimented
       | with a vegan/vegetarian diets. The effects were virtually the
       | exact opposite. I'm sure with a nutritionist and more dedication
       | I could have overcome many of these issues, but I found building
       | a decent diet harder and required more effort.
        
         | lupire wrote:
         | Did you ensure that you maintained protein level when you went
         | vegan/vegetarian? It's easy to eat much less protein if you
         | aren't careful.
        
         | arcturus17 wrote:
         | I lift heavy about 4x week.
         | 
         | A lower-carb calorie-restricted diet makes me more alert and
         | focused. On the other hand, I sleep like shit, my anxiety
         | levels skyrocket, and I also feel moodier, particularly in the
         | mornings. I also lose strength fairly quickly.
         | 
         | Eating at a surplus with carbs makes me more lethargic, lazy
         | and less focused, but I sleep far better, and I'm in a happier,
         | more social, mood. And of course I can make strength gains.
         | 
         | I tried surplus keto a while ago but didn't enjoy it and didn't
         | see any of its touted benefits.
         | 
         | If I found a diet that was all positives like you described, I
         | would probably hold on to it with my dear life.
         | 
         | What did your it consist of? Did you eat at a surplus or a
         | deficit? And what made you quit?
        
         | asoneth wrote:
         | I found similar results when I tried a vegan diet. Like you, I
         | suspect that I could have made it work if I spent the effort to
         | figure out what was missing. If I actually lived my life
         | according to my personal ethics that's what I'd do.
         | 
         | For now I've found vegetarianism significantly easier and a
         | satisfactory compromise between ethics, health, and nutritional
         | laziness.
        
         | dempseye wrote:
         | What do you mean when you say you felt like a grease grenade?
        
           | bane wrote:
           | Just very very greasy out of my pores. Oily all the time, 2
           | or 3 showers a day to keep the grease out of my hair. That
           | sort of thing.
        
       | chaimanmeow wrote:
       | I would like to see a comparison between the top 10% vegan and
       | omnivores. Most vegans are clueless when it comes to making up
       | deficiencies in typical vegan diets.
       | 
       | Glycine is one of the relevant aminos that is very suboptimal or
       | even scarce in vegetarian and vegan diets. It is also going to be
       | one of the important (and likely most common) limiting factors in
       | tissue repair.
       | 
       | Proline is also needed for collagen production, but not as
       | deficient in Glycine as far as vegetarian diets. Glycine is also
       | highly water soluble and a small molecule; it is constantly lost
       | in urine. The need for glycine goes way beyond collagen
       | production. It is essential for so many biological functions.
       | 
       | Glycine is not considered an "essential amino" because the body
       | produces glycine itself, hence it is overlooked by many. It turns
       | out the body produces only enough to usually barely scrape by. My
       | guess is if another group of vegans were given Glycine (at around
       | 4 to 5 grams/day) supplementation the disadvantage relative to
       | omnivores would be erased.
        
         | nomadiccoder wrote:
         | > Most vegans are clueless when it comes to making up
         | deficiencies in typical vegan diets
         | 
         | The same goes for non-vegans.
        
           | cameronh90 wrote:
           | However non-vegans don't normally need to make up for the
           | deficiencies in typical vegan diets.
        
         | UncleOxidant wrote:
         | I was completely vegan for a couple of years. I went that way
         | to avoid gallbladder surgery - it worked, I had no gallbladder
         | pain on a vegan diet. I Supplemented with B12 and Vitamin D as
         | those are typically low to non-existent in the vegan diet.
         | 
         | But I started to have problems with my teeth chipping - hadn't
         | had that before. I did some calculations and realized that
         | there was no way I was getting anywhere close to the RDA for
         | calcium. So I started supplementing some calcium.
         | 
         | After some gut problems I came to the conclusion that beans
         | weren't working for me. I needed to quit eating legumes for a
         | while which is highly problematic on a vegan diet as they're
         | the major source of protein.
         | 
         | Now I eat a tin of sardines twice/week (and other fish
         | occasionally) which means that technically I'm not vegan any
         | longer. At least the addition of fish did not cause any
         | gallbladder problems.
        
           | tpoacher wrote:
           | I can't remember the exact reference here, but I remember a
           | research paper which showed that veganism is associated with
           | an increased risk of cholecystitis.
           | 
           | This is despite the fact that a typical vegan diet is low in
           | fat (which is the typical reason a vegan diet is promoted for
           | gallbladder control). In fact, if I remember correctly, the
           | 'lack' of fat was also the main risk; in that the occasional
           | fact prompted a more violent reaction, thus increasing the
           | risk for an impaction.
           | 
           | I can try and find the article for you if you're interested,
           | though I remember last time I tried to find it it was no easy
           | task trying to sift through the myriad of google results
           | containing vegan blogs recommending vegan diets for
           | cholecystitis... But in any case, if you're going vegan for
           | fear of cholecystitis, be aware it may actually have the
           | reverse outcome!
        
             | UncleOxidant wrote:
             | In my case I was found to have a gallstone - I was having
             | occasional bouts of serious pain in the upper right
             | abdominal region that were becoming more frequent.
             | Ultrasound revealed gallstone.
             | 
             | But in the couple of weeks before I could get the
             | ultrasound I was essentially eating a vegan diet because I
             | wasn't sure what was causing the pain and I wanted to just
             | concentrate on only eating plants to minimize possible
             | triggers. And then when the results came back and the
             | surgeon told me it was time to schedule the surgery, I
             | realized that I hadn't had any pain on my minimal diet. And
             | so decided to give veganism a try for a month or so to see
             | what would happen - and I continued to have no pain.
             | 
             | I think what it comes down to is that some animal fats
             | cause the gallbladder to contract more vigorously -
             | especially red meat, eggs and dairy in my case would
             | trigger pain. I've heard about the issue you're talking
             | about as it's been suggested that since you no longer have
             | vigorous contractions of the gallbladder the gall tends to
             | pool up there. On the other hand I've also heard bitter
             | foods and beets help with this issue.
        
       | andrekandre wrote:
       | it would be interesting to see what the potential causality would
       | be for this (vitamins/minerals? hormones from the meat? fats?)
        
       | chmod600 wrote:
       | I'm curious if there are good, informative studies about _mental_
       | health and veganism.
       | 
       | Arguably mental health is more important when considering a
       | choice like veganism.
        
         | subsubzero wrote:
         | I found this:
         | https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/advance-article-ab...
         | 
         | also: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/animals-and-
         | us/20181...
         | 
         | then there is the question: do people with mental health issues
         | tend to gravitate towards veganism or is the diet itself is
         | causing the issues.
         | 
         | I would like to see a study with a large number of participants
         | from diverse backgrounds who are meat eaters and then go vegan
         | and see if that affects their mental health. However a meat
         | eater who is then forced to eat soy products/meat substitutes
         | they dislike may be unhappy for that very reason. Its a
         | difficult test condition to say the least.
        
           | chmod600 wrote:
           | You could have seven groups with varying levels of choice:
           | group 1 is forced to be vegan, group 4 is the control group,
           | and group 7 is forced to consume meat. Groups 2-3 would be
           | nudged vegan, 5-6 would be nudged to eat meat.
           | 
           | Measure them all and get happiness and health curves after 5,
           | 10, 15 years.
           | 
           | It would be expensive, but probably a better use of money
           | than a lot of other stuff.
        
       | 1996 wrote:
       | Related: the surgical scars of fasting mouse heal better (various
       | publications report the same results)
       | 
       | The same seems to apply in human, with various individual
       | anecdotal report: https://www.quora.com/Did-long-term-water-
       | fasting-improve-an...
        
         | walshemj wrote:
         | I was told that loading up on carbs helped with recovery and I
         | have a load of stuff downstairs in case i get called in.
        
           | 1996 wrote:
           | I notice the downvotes to my post, but what you was told is
           | demonstrably wrong.
           | 
           | As for how/why it works:
           | 
           | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7069085/
           | 
           | "Fasting before or after wound injury accelerates wound
           | healing through the activation of pro-angiogenic SMOC1 and
           | SCG2"
           | 
           | There are various other publications on autophagy (removing
           | old stem cells and making new ones)
           | 
           | For those who are going to say "in mice", the effects of true
           | (water only) fasting has been replicated in humans, in well
           | done trials, in even harsher conditions than surgery:
           | chemotherapy.
           | 
           | Fasting improves various things such as the severity of
           | symptoms during chemo and the efficiency of the treatment:
           | 
           | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5921787/
           | 
           | "Short term fasting during chemotherapy is well tolerated and
           | appears to improve quality of life and fatigue during
           | chemotherapy"
           | 
           | It may be counter intuitive, but there's a large body of
           | evidence that fasting promotes healing (check the various
           | reference of this 2018 trial: "Fasting cycles retard growth
           | of tumors and sensitize a range of cancer cell types to
           | chemotherapy" https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22323820/ etc
        
             | walshemj wrote:
             | That's not what the senior colorectal doctor at the royal
             | free told me last year.
        
               | 1996 wrote:
               | Your best interest may differ from doctors best interest
               | when treating you (not getting sued, following
               | guidelines, getting paid for not rocking the boat)
               | 
               | So document yourself: medline is free, and with sci-hub,
               | you can get the full versions of anything
               | 
               | EDIT: actually, no, don't document yourself. Ignorance is
               | bliss. Why would I even care? After all, it's your life!
               | And I care even less than your doctor, since we don't
               | even have a contractual relationship (which you have with
               | your doctor by virtue of paying him).
        
               | walshemj wrote:
               | Yeh my amateur research is going to be better than their
               | experience.
        
       | sto_hristo wrote:
       | Strange way to word the two patient types: vegans as opposed to
       | omnivores. Vegans are still omnivores, they just stopped eating
       | animal products because of beliefs.
       | 
       | I also smelled once a vegan cake. It's a medical miracle they can
       | survive on such a diet.
        
         | DanBC wrote:
         | > Vegans are still omnivores,
         | 
         | No they aren't.
         | 
         | From New Oxford English Dictionary:
         | 
         | > omnivorous
         | 
         | > adjective (of an animal or person) feeding on a variety of
         | food of both plant and animal origin.
        
       | SeanFerree wrote:
       | Very interesting. Thanks for sharing!
        
       | kiwiandroiddev wrote:
       | As much as the results of this study confirm what I would expect,
       | keep in mind it was an observational study and not a controlled
       | experiment. There might be some other factor at play in the vegan
       | group, say, other than just their diet.
       | 
       | Unfortunately I imagine an experiment to further investigate this
       | would be hard to get past an ethics board. I.e. wounding the
       | participants to see the effect on scar formation...
        
       | hirundo wrote:
       | > This study suggests that a vegan diet may negatively influence
       | the outcome of surgical scars.
       | 
       | This is unusually damning to veganism-as-it-is-practiced if not
       | to veganism itself. It would be interesting to see these results
       | across a wide range of diets.
        
         | centimeter wrote:
         | One of several motte-and-bailey tactics used by vegans is going
         | from
         | 
         | "Veganism is healthy"
         | 
         | To
         | 
         | "Veganism can be healthy if you exercise an impressive amount
         | of restraint, discipline, and judgement in your vegan diet"
        
           | petertodd wrote:
           | _If_ you can get enough exercise, you can be healthy on
           | pretty much any omnivore diet because it's so hard to not get
           | enough nutrition, and extra calories don't matter if you burn
           | them off. I personally lost lots of weight when I was cycling
           | regularly to work and school (10km and 50km round trip
           | respectively), as well as caving and climbing on weekends.
           | Almost everything I ate was fast food, because I had hardly
           | any spare time. But I was definitely healthy and felt great
           | so long as I took enough days off (I was getting enough
           | exercise that I simply couldn't do it every day).
           | 
           | Meanwhile, I know lots of people who have given up on vegan
           | diets because they felt like their health was declining, even
           | with regular exercise. I'm sure with enough care and
           | nutritional science they could have gotten it to work. But
           | it's so much easier to just add some animal products to your
           | diet.
        
             | jxramos wrote:
             | I remember hearing the question asked someplace about
             | whether any professional athletes are vegans, especially
             | for the intense sports that require a lot of muscle
             | rebuilding and maybe even contact sport healing and what
             | not. That might illuminate things a bit.
        
               | asoneth wrote:
               | There is an advocacy* movie called The Game Changers
               | which highlights several vegan athletes and makes the
               | case that their plant-based diet contributes to their
               | success. https://gamechangersmovie.com/
               | 
               | * I would not consider it a documentary as it has a clear
               | agenda, but I found it interesting nonetheless.
        
         | asoneth wrote:
         | I'm not sure any of the vegans I know would give up veganism in
         | order to minimize their scars any more than the meat-eaters I
         | know would give up meat based on studies that show it can be
         | mildly unhealthy.
        
           | moistbar wrote:
           | Maybe I'm reading into it too much, but the outcome of this
           | study seems to suggest there may be other healing-related
           | issues attached to veganism.
        
             | asoneth wrote:
             | I wouldn't be surprised, though I would be similarly
             | skeptical that other healing-related issues would sway
             | people one way or the other either since (at least the
             | vegans I know) don't adopt the lifestyle for health
             | reasons.
             | 
             | Very large effects are unlikely given the number of long-
             | term vegans who seem to maintain sufficient health. Whereas
             | small effects might be considered a worthwhile sacrifice.
        
           | imwillofficial wrote:
           | I reject your premise that eating meat makes you "mildly
           | unhealthy"
        
             | asoneth wrote:
             | Exactly.
             | 
             | [To clarify: I am not qualified to judge the general
             | healthiness of any particular diet -- any sufficiently
             | popular diet seems to have conflicting studies showing it
             | is "healthy" and others showing it is "unhealthy". The
             | point I intended to make above was that most people either
             | outright reject or remain unswayed by these kinds of
             | studies.]
        
         | rektide wrote:
         | Agreed that there are probably ways to remediate some of these
         | effects.
         | 
         | I definitely favor smaller less impactful scarring, but also,
         | so what? Calling ths "unusually damning" seems like a
         | significant overinflation of concern.
         | 
         | For all we know, it may have far more significant pro-recovery
         | characteristics associated with it. "Oh you built too much scar
         | tissue? Your vegan diet also stitched your blood vessels back
         | together really well."
        
           | arkitaip wrote:
           | dang really needs to get YC to develop an AI that can
           | automatically add /s to ironic comment.
        
             | centimeter wrote:
             | Or people could work on their ability to identify normal
             | human modes of speech.
        
               | ben_w wrote:
               | Given we've had the internet for over a generation with
               | this issue being known that whole time, I don't think
               | that's actually something we can do. Not in general, not
               | from plain text.
        
               | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
               | Text inherently makes it difficult if not impossible to
               | distinguish sarcasm that would be apparent with
               | verbal/visual context clues.
        
             | stelonix wrote:
             | I'd rather HN not allow such comments and we try to make
             | debate here better than on the rest of the internet.
        
         | badRNG wrote:
         | > This is unusually damning to veganism-as-it-is-practiced if
         | not to veganism itself.
         | 
         | I don't think a sample size of 21 is especially damning. Nor do
         | I think that the study's authors would come to that conclusion
         | either.
        
           | tpoacher wrote:
           | Depends. Emotive language aside (i.e. "damning") the low
           | sample size is actually "more evidence" in the presence of a
           | convincingly low p value.
           | 
           | It means that this particular sample of 21 people would have
           | to be _extremely_ atypical under the null hypothesis of no
           | difference. Therefore, given its low sample size (and thus
           | wide standard error), it is  'some' evidence that the effect
           | size is also probably quite large.
        
             | majormajor wrote:
             | That doesn't sound right. The reason sample size is
             | important is because the larger the group, the less likely
             | the group is to be atypical. I don't think you can turn
             | that around and then say "this group is small, which itself
             | is evidence, because otherwise it would have to be
             | extremely atypical to show a difference." That's completely
             | circular.
             | 
             | The p-value is still the important thing because the
             | p-value is itself affected by the sample size.
        
               | stevenhuang wrote:
               | No, effect size very much informs all of that.
               | 
               | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3444174/
        
       | gamblor956 wrote:
       | Not a surprise. Collagen is important for healing skin wounds,
       | and vegans get none from their diet. (Collagen is just a protein,
       | so it can be generated by the body, but it's easier for the body
       | to simply take collagen from dietary sources.)
        
         | subungual wrote:
         | Do you have a source for this? As far as I know, there is no
         | way for the body to uptake and employ collagen directly. It
         | needs to be broken down into smaller peptides, absorbed, and
         | rebuilt, just like any other protein.
        
         | souprock wrote:
         | That right there would be surprising and disturbing. Collagen
         | that shows up in the diet could arrive with subtle flaws.
         | 
         | Wikipedia: "as of 2011, 30 types of collagen have been
         | identified"
         | 
         | Besides getting the wrong type, it could just be damaged. It
         | also seems like an awfully big molecule to pass from the
         | digestive tract to the blood. If that can pass through, then
         | many poisons would also pass through.
         | 
         | Collagen is bigger than some viruses.
        
         | Metacelsus wrote:
         | >it's easier for the body to simply take collagen from dietary
         | sources.
         | 
         | Digestion doesn't work like that. Any ingested collagen is
         | broken down to amino acids like all other proteins. Then the
         | amino acids are re-polymerized into collagen.
        
       | hprotagonist wrote:
       | is effect size mentioned in the full text?
        
       | mint2 wrote:
       | This journal isn't open access is it?
       | 
       | I wanted so see the effect sizes not just p values which are
       | unhelpful. But if the vegans are all vitamin b12 deficient, it's
       | not a surprise their health has consequences.
       | 
       | And my other question is, is there self selection going on.
       | People who go to hospitals have worse outcomes than people who
       | don't, so the best thing to do is to avoid hospitals. P < 0.001.
       | Right? No, wrong. Did they become vegans due to digestive
       | problems or other health issue?
       | 
       | I'd really like to read the article to see if they considered
       | these things.
        
       | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
       | > Wound diastasis was more frequent in vegans (p = .008).
       | 
       | To me this is the bad part. Wound diastasis means that your
       | incision opens up again. That is IMO a bigger complication than a
       | scar since it likely requires medical intervention and puts you
       | at risk for infection.
        
       | tpoacher wrote:
       | I've actually noticed this effect on myself too. It's very
       | pronounced in fact.
       | 
       | I have a bad habit of biting my cuticles. I also happen to
       | observe lent, effectively going vegan for 50 days every year.
       | 
       | Typically my cuticles heal the next day, or two at most. But
       | every single time I enter lent, suddenly my cuticles take more
       | than a week to heal the same amount. The difference is very
       | obvious, to me at least.
        
         | hawk_ wrote:
         | curious what kind of lent you observe that's for 50 days not
         | 40.
        
           | beervirus wrote:
           | If you count Sundays, it's closer to 50 than 40.
        
             | hawk_ wrote:
             | i see, so apparenly different traditions count it
             | differently. i had always heard of it as 40 days of lent or
             | cuaresma etc... didn't know it could go upto 46 days.
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | Gys wrote:
       | > Conclusion: This study suggests that a vegan diet may
       | negatively influence the outcome of surgical scars.
       | 
       | > Twenty-one omnivore and 21 vegan patients who underwent
       | surgical excision of a nonmelanoma skin cancer
       | 
       | Interesting, but its a small group and stats are on the low end?
        
         | redis_mlc wrote:
         | n=21 is not necessarily a small population from a statistical
         | standpoint.
         | 
         | Anyway, would be interesting to get comments from doctors who
         | trest vegans. I'm not surprised at the result (we are what we
         | eat), so perhaps vegans really should be on vitamins.
        
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