I’m making this post so I can warn others who are sensitive to vitamins/supplements before they end up in the state I did.
I have been drinking 1 huel (2 scoops) every morning for the last 7 weeks and eating as I normally would.
The last few weeks I have become increasingly confused, anxious, depressed, agitated, lethargic, tired the list goes on… I didn’t relate any of this to Huel until I started researching last week…
If you do your research, b vitamins can cause anxiety it lots of people as they stimulate the same pathways as caffeine in the brain which I can’t drink as it does make me anxious. Also look up the side effects of selenium and folate (folic acid). Both can very bad for you but I think also what has had a massive effect is copper.
“ Depending on the severity of the copper toxicity and the susceptibility of the person, copper can affect the mind moderately or very severely. The milder effects are initially positive because it is activating and stimulating and can increase creativity and productivity. I’ve witnessed this myself, as I used to feel as if my chronic anxiety motivated me to accomplish a lot of work. It may be why creative people tend be [ depressed and anxious
But as the toxicity continues and builds up more and more, it becomes increasingly exhausting on the body and the individual can start to break down mentally, leading to an inability to cope adequately with stress. The anxious person’s fatigued body can’t keep up with their overactive mind, and medication often becomes necessary.”
I have experience all of these symptoms first hand I went to the doctors on the verge of a mental breakdown and was given anti depressants which I didn’t take, I stopped drinking huel 7 days ago and am almost completely back to normal apart from some mild anxiety.
In a nutshell overloading your body with nutrients it does not need it a bad idea, well for me it was anyway.
Anybody can try and discredit me and that’s fine but I know how I felt/feel and I’m just telling you be carefu.
This is curious, with only 2 scoops a day I wouldn’t have thought Huel would bring anywhere near enough additional b6/b12 into your diet to trigger a reaction like that.
For example with b12 I think as of Huel 2.3 there’s 4μg per 2,000 calories, which is 160% of the NRV, but you would only have been having a quarter of that each day @Dantheman31.
Not looking to discredit you, and I’m glad that you managed to get yourself back on track, but I’d be very interested in @JamesCollier’s thoughts on this.
Hey Daniel, I’m really sorry to hear what you’ve been going through. Have you managed to mention Huel to your GP/health professional?
The side effects and toxicities you’re mentioning are at super super high levels, way above anything you’re going to find in normal food levels like Huel. As you’re only have one Huel meal a day too you don’t even hit 100% of the RDA for any of the 26 essential vitamins and minerals. You can see this in more detail here.
The mind is super complicated and if you feel that stopping Huel works for you, that’s great I’m not here to persuade you otherwise. However, there is no evidence or reason for one Huel meal a day to be the cause when so many other factors are involved and the amount of Huel being consumed, along with the nutrients it contains, is relatively low.
I can see you’ve quoted the info in your post from somewhere so if you want me to look into that source for you, feel free to send over a link.
So the only thing that’s been different compared to my usual is consuming huel and since I stopped 7 days ago I’m calmer less anxious and not sad, I was literally crying everyday couldn’t even calm my own thoughts down felt like I was on mild drugs of drinking super amount of caffeine it’s hard to explain, I was getting out the work van lifting a couple of tyres and feeling out of breath and fatigued all the time… like I say all the symptoms have stopped upon discontinuation,
Here’s the links that I have been reading, like i say I’m no expert on levels etc and how the body absorbs things all I know is my experience and how I’ve been feeling,
H ttps://eatfor.life/3-reasons-multi-vitamins-cause-harm-good/
H ttps://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-11727/are-vitamins-triggering-your-anxiety.html
H ttps://www.optimallivingdynamics.com/blog/do-you-have-chronic-stress-and-anxiety-these-two-minerals-might-be-the-cause
Also a link to another huel post I found with other users having a similar issue
I find this hard to fully believe as anxiety and depression are symptoms triggered by other factors which can either be reactive to life events or a chemical imbalance of seratonin in and dopamine. I’m a mental health nurse and personally have found that the weight loss and management achieved by huel has boosted my overall mental well-being including mood and lessening of irritability. I also treat people for anxiety and depression on a daily basis and through this work there is never only one cause of anxiety and depression but a perfect storm of external triggers and pre existing psychological predisposition or trauma.
I work within mental health, this is a very extreme reaction. From my experience this would not happen from 2 scoops per day. I would say that you are either picking poisons up from elsewhere or there is a possibility of mental health problems in your family?
Thanks Daniel, I appreciate you sending over those links!
The first link, unfortunately this person is really lacking the qualifications to be talking on this topic and provided no references. What I’m trying to get at, in the nicest way possible, is she has just made up a lot of the statements for her article. She’s also talking about multivitamins, which aren’t regulated in the same way foods are, are only taken once a day, and often contain doses far above those found in foods.
Here’s an except from the second link for vitamin B12 “Like B6, high doses of B12 (>1,000 mcg) increase neurotransmitter levels, and as a result, have stimulating properties.”. One meal of Huel contains 0.8mcg of vitamin B12. The rest of the article follows a similar pattern.
The third link talks about a possible cause being an imbalance of copper to zinc (too much copper). Huel contains both copper and zinc and one meal contains 25% of the recommended daily amount for copper so we’re all good here too!
I hope that provides you with some reassurance and I’m glad to hear you’ve been feeling better each day.
Like I said, I’m not here to persuade you back into trying Huel but with mental health issues it really could be anything even down to the placebo effect. There’s no evidence that the composition of Huel, at one meal a day is the cause.
I’m so sorry you had this experience, it sounds really awful. Even if the symptoms have got better now, have you spoken to your doctor about this? I think it’s important you speak with a professional so they can look into it properly. There are a number of different things that can cause symptoms like this, and a number of reasons why they can come and go over time. It’s good to do your own research and get an understanding of your own body, but always talk to a doctor on top of this. You’ll never know if you’re missing knowledge about a long term condition, an allergy, or basically anything. You will find articles online that are positive or negative about anything at all, but only your own doctor can tell you what’s relevant to you.
I’m still hueling, and I do get the issues I mention in that post if I do huel for a long stretch.
Most of these days I don’t, as life and other things mean that I don’t do Huel every day.
I know for a fact that every time I experienced the wiredness, after stopping huel the issues would go away.
Thanks for all the responses guys. There is history of mental illness on my family and I have had anxiety issues and mild depression in the past but huel has definitely in my mind exasperated my symptoms a lot. Maybe my brain doesn’t like certain vitamins or supplements and reacts badly to them?
Either way I’m going to go to the doctors anyway and have a chat with them but all I know for now is I haven’t cried once or had even half as bad anxiety and agitation in the last 7 days since I stopped consuming huel. Maybe it is a placebo effect I don’t feel like it is, I’m not here to put the drink down just to see if anybody else has also had this response.
And thanks for the reply above makes me think I’m not just going crazy .
I’ll see how I feel in another week.
Correlation is not the same as causation. Perhaps something else caused your breakdown and now you are looking for things that happened simultaneosly. And there is always something that happens to have changed at the same time without really being related to it.
Some flavours also contain caffeine - have you used one that does? This could also be a problem.
You could be right the first 5 days off huel I felt better as the days went on but now I have really bad anxiety… like I’m on a withdrawal but yeah maybe I’m just looking for something to explain my symptoms… I haven’t drank caffeine for 5 years at all as it gives me anxiety I’ve been drinking the vanilla flavour had that one got caffeine in??
no - only coffee and chocolate based flavours have detectable levels of caffeine - all the other flavours have trace levels too low to show up in any testing.
Please can you link any research paper which supports your theory that flaxseed consumption leads to or perpetuates anxiety?
If you can’t I will, again, edit your comment to remove pseudoscience and misinformation and silence your account. I’ve already emailed you about this and you haven’t acknowledged it, so perhaps you will read this comment. Please link to any research that supports this.
Here is an article about the safety and recommended intake of flaxseed with plenty of references.
Not everyone does well on plant based diets. If you’re struggling watch the podcast below. Mikhaila Peterson had massive reaction to plant based eating and it’s worth the watch. It helped a member of my family enormously. Huel is an amazing product but it’s not right for everyone in my opinion.
Carnivore diets are likely to work simply by eliminating the problem foods in the diet. The issue is there is no reintroduction of foods that do not cause problems and therefore several nutrients will be lacking in the diet.
I’m glad a member of your family was helped James, but the best bet is for anyone in a similar situation is to work with a Registered Dietitian.
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