A tragic case has emerged as an inquest reveals that a university student, deeply concerned about environmental issues, ended her life amid a series of delusions linked to her vegan diet.
Georgina Owen, a 21-year-old from Saffron Walden in Essex, embraced a plant-based lifestyle in 2016 due to her environmental beliefs. Unfortunately, in the months leading up to her death, she suffered from a deficiency in vitamin B12.
Described by those who knew her as “vibrant and full of enthusiasm,” Owen was a student at the University of Swansea. She sadly passed away in September 2019, just a month after her family discovered she hadn’t been taking her vitamin B12 supplements for at least six months.
Vitamin B12, naturally found in shellfish, meat, dairy, and eggs, plays a crucial role in producing red blood cells and maintaining both the nervous system and DNA.
For vegans, acquiring sufficient B12 can be challenging without supplements or fortified foods, as a deficiency can lead to anemia alongside neurological and psychological complications.
Owen had informed her family that she had “forgotten” to take her supplements, yet had purchased an “organic” Methyl-cobalamin B12 spray from Canada to address the deficiency. However, post-mortem blood tests revealed she remained deficient in B12, as the coroner’s court reported.
Elizabeth Gray, area coroner for Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, reported that Miss Owen had demonstrated ‘unusually erratic behaviour’ in the period leading up to her death, and that her personal diaries showed a ‘deterioration’ in her mental health.
She said: ‘Miss Owen’s family reported that in the recent period before her death she had [been] dwelling on the state of the world and her place in it.
‘Miss Owen was meditating frequently, and that she had reported to her family a recent meditation event where she had experienced an out of body experience which she had found to be very distressing.’
Georgina Owen had followed a vegan diet for three years but took her own life in the midst of a delusional episode linked to B12 deficiency
A coroner’s court heard that her symptoms and blood tests correlated with signs of B12 deficiency
Her family arranged psychological support for what they recognised as anxiety, and planned to drive her back to Wales on September 19 2019 as she prepared to resume her studies, having planned to go surfing over the weekend.
But later that same day, she was found hanged at her home address. Medics resuscitated her using CPR and she was transported to Cambridge’s Addenbrooke’s Hospital, where she died two days later.
Ms Gray noted that investigations were carried out after her death to assess whether she had been deficient in vitamin B12 ‘as a result of her vegan diet’ and, if so, whether the deficiency caused her to suffer ‘psychiatric manifestations’.
Three experts reviewed her blood tests and found that the results were consistent with B12 deficiency, while a report noted that she had ‘vague signs of cognitive impairment, anxiety, difficulty with simple decision-making and fatigue’.
Her symptoms, the report said, suggested a ‘gradually developing psychiatric disorder culminating in the delusional beliefs’ that she expressed in a note that was found with her body.
Recording a narrative conclusion, the coroner noted that the student died whilst ‘on the balance of probabilities suffering delusional beliefs brought about by a Vitamin B12 deficiency developed as a direct result of her vegan diet.’
The Vegan Society recommends that all vegans take B12 supplements or risk symptoms ranging from loss of energy to hallucinations and personality changes.
It warns in its guidance: ‘If for any reason you choose not to use fortified foods or supplements you should recognise that you are carrying out a dangerous experiment – one that many have tried before with consistently low levels of success.’
Miss Owen’s father Julian, a consultant orthopaedic surgeon, previously told the Daily Mail prior to the conclusion of the inquest that he feared a vitamin B12 deficiency played a part in her death.
‘Georgina only sporadically took B12 supplements. Sadly she became psychotic and took her own life suffering an “acute delusional episode”,’ he said.
‘I strongly believe that B12 deficiency may well have had a role to play.’
He has since co-founded CluB-12, a research group aiming to advance the research into and understanding of vitamin B12.
B12 deficiency is thought to affect around three per cent of those aged 20-39 years old; in vegans of all ages, the rate may be as high as 11 per cent, according to the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE).
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