Woman, 21, took her own life after 'vegan diet led to delusional beliefs'

Warning: This article contains discussion of suicide which some readers may find distressing.

A coroner has ruled that a woman's suicide could be directly linked to 'delusions' caused by her vegan diet, due to a critical lack of a specific vitamin that is mostly found in animal products.

While many meat eaters have long stereotyped people who follow animal-free or vegan diets as being a bit crazy, this coroner in Cambridgeshire, England, found that university student Georgina Owen was genuinely being driven mad by her diet.

That's because, when you follow a vegan diet, you also avoid many of the sources of the key vitamin B12, a chemical that carnivores consume in such abundance that any deficiency is usually a sign that something is seriously wrong with their health.

Many vegans will consume B12 supplements to counteract this deficiency, something that the University of Swansea student had stopped doing in the time leading up to her tragic death in 2019.

B12 supplements are common among people who do not eat meat (Getty Stock)

21-year-old Owen had started following a vegan diet in 2016, three years before her death, due to fears 'stemming from her environmental concerns' about climate change.

But the student, described as 'vibrant, [and] full of enthusiasm' would take her life in September 2019 - just a month after her family noticed that she had stopped taking her B12 supplements.

Many vegans take supplements for this nutrient, which is most commonly found in meat, dairy, eggs, and shellfish. B12 is essential for your body's constant production of red blood cells and DNA synthesis.

While a B12 deficiency will often cause anemia and a number of other strange symptoms like a tingling in your extremities or ataxis (a loss of balance), its most strange effect can be on people's minds.

Owen told her concerned family that she had started taking a B12 spray that she had bought online from Canada, but her post mortem report found that she still had a deficiency, the Daily Mail reports.

Coroner Elizabeth Gray recorded that Owen had shown 'unusually erratic behaviour' in the time before her death, with her personal writing showing she had experienced a 'deterioration' in her mental health. Something they linked to her vitamin deficiency.

There are many natural sources of B12, but most of them require consuming animal products (Getty Stock)

Coroner Gray said: "Miss Owen's family reported that in the recent period before her death she had [been] dwelling on the state of the world and her place in it.

"Miss Owen was meditating frequently, and that she had reported to her family a recent meditation event where she had experienced an out of body experience which she had found to be very distressing."

This downturn in her mental health led her family to arrange emotional support for Owen, who they planned on returning to her studies at university which were due to start in a matter of weeks. She also made plans to go surfing that weekend.

But on September 19, she was found asphyxiated at her home. Although paramedics were able to revive her with CPR, she died two days later in hospital.

As part of the inquest, three experts explored whether or not a B12 deficiency could be blamed for the marked shift in her mental state, which was described in court as psychosis. They confirmed from blood tests that she was lacking the vitamin.

They heard that Owen had showed 'vague signs of cognitive impairment, anxiety, difficulty with simple decision-making and fatigue' that reflected a 'gradually developing psychiatric disorder culminating in the delusional beliefs.'

After hearing all the evidence, Coroner Gray ruled a narrative verdict, arguing 'on the balance of probabilities suffering delusional beliefs brought about by a Vitamin B12 deficiency developed as a direct result of her vegan diet.'

If you or someone you know is struggling or in a mental health crisis, help is available through Mental Health America. Call or text 988 or chat 988lifeline.org. You can also reach the Crisis Text Line by texting MHA to 741741.

If you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call National Suicide Prevention Helpline on 1-800-273-TALK (8255). The Helpline is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week.