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Vegan Diet Slows Down My Brain – Revisited & Confirmed

I do (paleo) vegan fast every year. I eat ad libitum, but no animal foods. Gluten and refined plant oils are also excluded, as they are during the rest of the year.

The fast is a welcome stressor and forces some variability into my eating habits. It is also an opportunity to assess effects of various types of foods on my brain.

This year’s 42 days fast confirmed findings from the last year.

Going vegan hurts my choice reaction times. The mean reaction time deteriorated by more than 4 milliseconds. Almost one standard deviation move (5.9 msec.).

My condition worsened with time. Note the sharp drop in the reaction times immediately after the animal foods reintroduction. The negative measured effect as well as subjective weakness and clouded mind went away immediately after the first steak.

The graph shows the average time of every finished set of my choice reaction times test. Red dots are the test sets during intervention, blue during control months. The black trend line is a 7 day (14 sets) moving average.

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Juraj Karpiš

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10 odpovedí na “Vegan Diet Slows Down My Brain – Revisited & Confirmed”

  1. David Avatar
    David

    what method(s) were used for the measurements?

    1. karpis Avatar
      karpis

      choice reaction time app (app in R). 2 sets of 32 correct answers every day in the afternoon. random single digit number flashed after randomized time. correct answer = hit the right key.

  2. Roman Avatar
    Roman

    Am I missing something? It seems like the data he is showing does not support the article’s central thesis:

    His cognitive ability didn’t decrease when he went vegan, but when the switched from vegan BACK to animal products.

    He says as much: „Note the sharp drop in the reaction times immediately after the animal foods reintroduction.“

    If you look closely at the data points, his cognitive ability seemed to go up as a result of his vegan diet.

    Is this high level vegan trolling?

    1. karpis Avatar
      karpis

      the lower the number (reaction time in milliseconds) the better

  3. Jan Klos Avatar
    Jan Klos

    Next time you might try supplementing creatine when on vegan diet. Creatine is in short supply outside meat and small amount is required for human brain to function 100% (and also for many other bodily functions).

    A lot of professionals now recommend supplementing creatine when on vegan diet.

    1. karpis Avatar
      karpis

      thanks for the suggestion, but in the context that I consider this change once a year as a welcome stressor I don’t want/need to add anything highly processed.

  4. Experimentujte – ide o (váš) život | Juraj Karpis

    […] ako kávu som testoval viacero iných intervencií. Vplyv vegánskej diéty na krvné testy alebo reakčné časy, efekty omega-3 mastných kyselín z rýb alebo ľanových semien, dopady stresu, či už v podobe […]

  5. Experimentujte – ide o (váš) život – Čítačka

    […] ako kávu som testoval viacero iných intervencií. Vplyv vegánskej diéty na krvné testy alebo reakčné časy, efekty omega-3 mastných kyselín z rýb alebo ľanových semien, dopady stresu, či už v podobe […]

  6. David Avatar
    David

    Dear Juraj,

    do you have any insight on what might be causing the change in reaction time? I don’t find the result surprising, but would like to have more context.

    Excuse my layman thinking, but I see two (of possibly many options):
    1. the system is undernourished and not able to react as they should (on vegan diet, your body is functioning *beyond equilibrium*, eg. vegan diet causes negative effect)
    2. meat intake improves reaction time through systems being in an „above equilibrium“ state (possibly more stressed – cortisol?)

    I’ve been predominantly on a vegan diet more than a year, and would like to run some tests. Would you mind sharing your R script?

    1. Juraj Karpiš Avatar
      Juraj Karpiš

      hi, longterm I would guess both, but short term (my vegan fast) i think 1. will be more important. evidence in this direction is also lower metabolic rate (resting heart rate as well). pls. write me an email and I will share the code with you.

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