Raw Vegan Blogger Zhanna Samsonova Dies of Exhaustion: Report

A 39-year-old Russian woman died in Malaysia earlier this month after years of subsisting entirely on a raw vegan diet, according to Russian media reports. Zhanna Samsonova, who went by Zhanna D’Art online, worked variously as a vegetarian chef, yoga teacher, and masseuse in South East Asia, and shared her lifestyle with several thousand Instagram followers. She’d been following an all-raw vegan diet for at least a decade, according to one Instagram post. A newspaper published in Kazan, the Russian city where Samsonova’s mother lives, was the first to report her July 21 death. Her mother told the Vechernyaya Kazan that her daughter died of a “cholera-like infection” after several days in an intensive care unit. She added that she believed Samsonova had succumbed to exhaustion and the stress placed on her body by an all-vegan diet. An official cause of death has not been confirmed.

If you are affected by the content of this story, the National Eating Disorder Association (NEDA) can help. To reach a helpline call 800 931 2237 from 11 a.m.–9 p.m. ET Monday to Thursday, and from 11 a.m.–5 p.m. ET on Friday. To access web chat support use this link between 9 a.m.–9 p.m. ET on Monday to Thursday, and 9 a.m.–5 p.m. on Friday.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEnZiipKmXsqK%2F02eaqKVfp664edWenpqmXZe5sLPGnqlmspiWu6%2BtjKyYpqufo7y3rYydoJ6rXaSzbrHXoZiuq6SevK950Z6nqKqk