This case should serve as a cautionary note among those who are into extreme fad diets and end up trusting social media advisories over basic nutritional logic.Vegan influencer Zhanna Samsonova, who has consistently been promoting raw foods on social media, has reportedly “died of starvation” after living off a jackfruit diet, according to a report in New York Post, which quoted friends and family.Most would have known the 39-year-old influencer from her handle Zhanna D’Art, and many users had already noticed how she was progressively getting emaciated in her posts. Though she finally died during a tour in Southeast Asia, a close friend quoted by the New York Post said she had “swollen legs oozing lymph. They sent her home to seek treatment. However, she ran away again. When I saw her in Phuket, I was horrified.” Samsonova’s mother said she succumbed to a “cholera-like infection.” Samsonova, in her own words, survived on a “completely raw vegan diet” for the last four years, consuming just “fruits, sunflower seed sprouts, fruit smoothies and juices.” She claimed that it brought about a body transformation and helped her look younger than her peers. But what she considered healthy turned out to be the unhealthiest of them all.
