A YouTube star has revealed she was forced to quit the vegan lifestyle after six years, as it had caused her to stop having periods.
Yovana Mendoza Ayres is famous for her videos documenting her experience with the raw vegan diet, but now says it has raised major health concerns and has had to abandon it.
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The 29-year-old - known by her online name, Rawvana - made the shock announcement on her channel, citing a lack of periods and issues with her digestive system as the reasons behind the decision.
She said: "I believe it because I felt it. Six years ago, I adopted a raw vegan diet. Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food.
"I was able to overcome addiction like alcoholism and smoking cigarettes."
However, two months ago the American said she began reintroducing fish and eggs into her diet - without telling her followers - but decided to address the issue when she was spotted eating fish while out in a restaurant.
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Up until that point she says she was totally vegan, but after undergoing a 25-day water fast in 2014, her periods stopped.
Two years later she went for a check up with her doctor who said she was 'pre-menopausal'.
She said: "I even thought that it was a good thing at one point....I learned that not having a period is really not healthy. It's not good for you.
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"I felt good physically, but the numbers were wrong and I wasn't getting my period."
Yovana quickly dropped her raw diet and began eating some cooked foods but a year later her periods stopped once again.
Doctors told her to incorporate eggs into her diet because she was 'basically anaemic' - but she refused. However, her health problems got worse and last year she developed vaginal candidiasis - a form of yeast infection - and had a small intestine bacterial growth (SIBO) - which stopped her from digesting fibre.
She said in the video: "I was starting to feel desperate for my health and to find a solution. And that is when I opened up to the possibility of adding some animal product into my diet.
"It was really hard because for so long I saw this food, this animal food, as something that is basically toxic for my body. Something that I don't need. That my body doesn't need.
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"To see it as something that could heal me was really hard for me to accept or admit or consider at the time."
However, taking her health and family into consideration, she eventually made the difficult decision to start eating fish and eggs.
Yovana added: "I want to bring some babies into this world. I want to have a family. If I am not good then how can I expect to bring a family into this world?"
Unsurprisingly, some of her followers haven't been as supportive as she would have hoped.
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One person commented: "Making money off vegans to buy animal products. Sickening."
Featured Image Credit: Instagram/RawvanaTopics: Food, Interesting, Vegan, US News, Animals, YouTube