Vegan diet

Narrative and systematic comparative review between Vegan Diet (VD) and omnivorous one with descriptive and inferential statistical analyses with which we tried to offer a guide towards a diet without faunal sources, mentioning its advantages such as increased animal welfare, reduced environmental impact and various diseases (cancer, fatty liver, diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular, etc.) and disadvantages such as bulky and fibrous protein meals, potential hypovitaminosis (A, B12 and D3), microelement deficits (e.g. Ca and Fe2+) and deficiencies of essential polyunsaturated fatty acids ω-3 EPA and DHA, due to the absence or poor availability of these biochemical resources in kingdoms other than the animal one, which requires mandatory supplementation with food supplements (vegan multivitamin and algal ω-3) in order to avoid them and fiber excess that can cause intestinal disbiosis. A paragraph dedicated to food alternatives will illustrate simply what to replace prohibited foods such as: meat, fish, milk and eggs. The possibility of using the Vegan Diet in critical age groups (pregnancy, breastfeeding, weaning and aging) and athletes has been evaluated. A comparative review was performed between the composition of the vegan (herbivorous) and omnivorous microbiota, generally finding a prevalence of the genus Prevotella in the first, while Bacteroidetes in the second. Multiple diets used to treat pathologies (Low FODMAP for dysbiosis, DASH for hypertension, MIND for neurodegenerative, and VLCKD for type 2 diabetes) can be veganized.