There are many diets out there. Some are fad diets that don’t last. Some are highly restrictive, but the people on them claim that there are health benefits. Sometimes there are health benefits, but some restrictive diets may be harmful when taken too far, especially without doctor supervision.
Zhanna Samsonova was known to her social media followers as Zhanna D’Art. For the past 10 years, the vegan lifestyle influencer had been on a very strict diet. According to a newspaper called Vechernyaya Kazan, for the past four years, Zhanna had limited her diet to the following foods: fruits, juices, bean sprouts and sunflower seeds. According to one of her friends, her diet was much more restrictive than that. This friend claimed that for the past seven years Zhanna only actually ate one food, a tropical fruit called durian.
On July 21, 2023, Zhanna was scheduled to fly home from a trip to Malaysia. She never made it home. According to Zhanna’s mother, Vera Samsonova, Zhanna’s unofficial cause of death appears to be a “cholera-like infection,” but her mother blames Zhanna’s strict diet for leaving her body “exhausted.” Zhanna was 39 years old.
A few months prior to Zhanna’s death, one of her friends told Newsflash that Zhanna’s appearance was shocking when the friends met up in Sri Lanka. The friend explained, “They sent her home to seek treatment. However, she ran away again. When I saw her in Phuket, I was horrified.” The friend continued, “I lived one floor above her and every day I feared finding her lifeless body in the morning. I convinced her to seek treatment, but she didn’t make it.”