Veganism is becoming more of a concern in regards to both environment and animal rights, along with its health benefits.
The practice helps educate those practicing with diet, cooking as well as nutrition. And most recently, there has also been research that links vegan diets with lower blood pressure, rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes as well as some types of cancer.
And as a result, there a people who claim that being a vegan has directly helped their health, like Penny Lown from Cornwall.
The 55-year-old claims that her recovering from cancer can be credited back to veganism.
Lown was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in April of 2013, and was given six to nine months to live at most, according to doctors.
And while Lown was floored by the news, she was also perturbed as she had lived a very healthy lifestyle.
After going through chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and extensive surgery — Penny’s cancer became operable.
She believes medical treatments were what helped her beat the disease.
Her remission from pancreatic cancer was 10 years from diagnosis and recovery was not easy.
She shared with UNILAD how more than anything else, being vegan was one of the first steps at getting healthy.
“I had to learn to adapt to my post-surgical body with a very sensitive digestion and only 20 percent of my pancreas left which was pretty much dormant rendering me diabetic. Also during the surgery, my psyche changed and in many ways I felt like a helpless, wounded animal. I then couldn’t consume anything that involves the suffering of animals. I was that animal, suffering, pretty much in the hands of fate. As my body healed and healed I could only put into it ‘pure’ fuel. The more I did the better I felt. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life feeling anxious about the possibility of cancer revisiting. The statistics are there. Plant-based eating is the healthiest diet you can possibly have to avoid cancer and to stabilise diabetes.”
Over the past three years, Penny has been a vegan for two of them, saying it has made a huge impact on her recovery from cancer.
She shares how every day is an opportunity to learn
“I am absolutely sure I am alive because I am on a plant-based diet and I am absolutely sure that is why I recovered so well. A plant-based diet keeps my blood sugars low helping me with my diabetes but it is the healthiest diet you can have full-stop. I have plenty of vitality and energy even becoming a yoga teacher after recovering from surgery, I have a perfect weight which rarely changes, I apparently look remarkable considering my age and the cancer and I swam a mile across the Padstow Estuary against a strong current for charity in the summer. Being vegan is completely empowering and I now feel like I am who I was meant to be. It has changed my rooting to the world. Because I had such a difficult experience, it is important to make a springboard out of it.”
I am sold.
Sign me up!
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