Vegan raw food influencer dies allegedly of starvation, exhaustion

A young influencer, who for years was only eating a raw vegan diet and passionately advocating it all the time on social media, has died reportedly of starvation and exhaustion.

The Russian 39-year-old influencer, Zhanna Samsonova, who used her social media accounts to spread her raw diet doctrine, died on July 21, said news reports. She was touring south-east Asia at that time.

Samsonova, who called herself Zhanna D’Art online, was pursuing an all-raw vegan diet for nearly a decade, according to her Instagram post. She would eat only a raw vegan diet consisting of ‘fruits, sunflower seed sprouts, fruit smoothies and juices’ for the past five years.

Her mother told Russian newspaper Vechernyaya Kazan that she died from a ‘cholera-like infection’ made worse by ‘exhaustion of the body by a vegan diet’. According to her friend, Samsonova was spotted in Sri Lanka few months ago and she already looked exhausted, with swollen legs oozing lymph. She was sent home to seek treatment but she reportedly ran away again and emerged in Phuket.

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Her friends tried to convince her to seek treatment but her eating habits got limited over the last few months of her life. Zhanna’s official cause of death has, however, not yet been determined.

The influencer ostensibly had survived on the giant sweet jackfruit and durian, a mace like fruit known for its noxious odour. Rooting for restrictive eating, Samsonova said on social media that she saw her body and mind transform every day. And that she loved her new her and will never move on to the habits that she used to use.