There are a lot of clinical studies that show a vegetarian or vegan diet can have overall beneficial health for the eater. Since there are more and more celebrities claiming to live on a vegan diet, many people have been wondering about how a vegan diet can help or hurt certain common ailments, such as arthritis. A vegan diet excludes not only meat, but dairy, honey, eggs and any other animal-based foods. Is this a diet for arthritis patients?

No Easy Answer

Unfortunately, there is no easy answer, because everyone's health needs are different. You might have a combination of ailments and allergies to certain medications, which means a vegan diet for arthritis patients might not be best in your case. You have to work with your doctor, nutritionist or rheumatologist in order to come up with a diet for arthritis patients that you can live with.

If you are taking away all animal products, you still need to be taking in the nutrients that these products can provide. For example, meat provides protein. Although you can get protein from nuts, eating only peanut butter sandwiches is not recommended as a healthy diet for arthritis patients. You need a variety of protein sources in order to stay healthy.

Not Everyone Can Do It

Even the best of intentions about going onto a vegan diet for ethical reasons may lead to physical harm under certain circumstances. You may be able to go eat a vegetarian diet for arthritis patients, but still need the calcium and protein that dairy provides. It all depends on your body's needs. If your skin changes color, if you are dizzy or feel suddenly ill after a week or more on your new vegan diet, contact your doctor immediately.

A most famous case of good intentions gone awry was with the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. He saw a chicken being killed for his meal and was filled with horror for the chicken. He wanted to be a strict vegetarian from then on. Some of the politicians in India that he most admired were vegetarians. However, after a month on his vegetarian diet, he became very ill and jaundiced. Sadly, he had to go back to eating meat.

As a child, the Dalai Lama had been raised in Tibet, which has a meat-heavy diet because growing plants is hard in the thin soil. This is what his body became used to and could not make the adjustment to only vegetarian food. What happened to the Dalai Lama may not happen to you, but it does show the need to take any dietary changes slowly.