A vegan blogger claimed periods were 'toxic'. Then a gynaecologist weighed in.

The latest medical advice from non-medical professionals is that your period is ‘toxic’ and you’d be better off without it.

Yep, vegan bloggers have been losing their periods and claiming it’s a good thing. They believe their clean eating diets have eradicated the toxins from their body and balanced out their hormones.

It started with Freelee the Banana Girl announcing she had successfully lost her period in 2013, and recently blogger Miliany Bonet even claimed: “The lighter you menstruate, the cleaner you are”.

Riiiiiight.

The melon didn’t stand a chance… ???????????? ????: @vertical.addiction

A post shared by Freelee (@freeleebananagirl) on Oct 16, 2016 at 9:40pm PDT

This trend is not only alarming but really, really dangerous – it sends the message to young girls and women that their period is unnatural and somehow their fault for not restricting their diet.

Of course, it doesn’t take a medical degree to realise that if you’re not menstruating and ovulating – your body is trying to tell you something.

However, Pedestrian TV recently spoke to Michael Gannon, a practising gynaecologist and the President of the Australian Medical Association, to get a medical opinion on this trend.

Gannon basically said if you lose your period you’re actually suffering from a medical condition called amenorrhoea, and it’s a “sign that’s something’s wrong”.

According to Better Health Victoria, primary amenorrhoea occurs when a young girl or woman doesn’t develop their period at all, and secondary amenorrhoea occurs when they have it but then lose it.

“If you are under a situation of stress or starvation, then your body will know it’s not a good time to reproduce,” Gannon explained. “So people on starvation diets will commonly stop ovulating, they will commonly lose their periods, and it’s very easy for some strict vegan diets to be akin to a starvation diet.”

Gannon believes that strict vegan diets are not healthy and he says the human body needs iron and B12 to function.

Mia Freedman has a mirena. And she wants to tell us all about it. Post continues…

In fact, he says vegan diets can be as unhealthy as a junk food diet, when taken to the extreme.

The gynaecologist believes we should all be striving for a balanced diet full of natural foods like fruit and veggies, whole grains, low fat protein and minimising our intake of processed foods.

If your period disappears for more than three months, Gannon says you should definitely chat to your GP about it.