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. 2025 Jul;49(13):3874-3883.
doi: 10.1007/s00266-025-04698-y. Epub 2025 Feb 3.

The Impact of Vegan and Vegetarian Diets on Wound Healing: A Scoping Review

Agustin N Posso  1 , Alynah J Adams  1   2 , Maria J Escobar-Domingo  1 , Jose Foppiani  1   3 , Audrey Mustoe  1 , Dorien I Schonebaum  1 , Noelle Garbaccio  1 , Jade E Smith  1 , Samuel J Lin  1 , Bernard T Lee  4
Affiliations

The Impact of Vegan and Vegetarian Diets on Wound Healing: A Scoping Review

Agustin N Posso et al. Aesthetic Plast Surg. 2025 Jul.

Abstract

Background: Globally, vegan and vegetarian diets have grown in popularity. At the same time, it is well-known that nutrition plays a critical role in postoperative outcomes, including wound healing. The present investigation undertakes a systematic scoping review of the current literature that explores the impact of vegan or vegetarian diets on wound healing.

Methods: The protocol followed PRISMA-ScR guidelines. PubMed, Web of Science, and Cochrane Library were used to identify articles published until 2024. Studies comparing any wound healing outcome between vegan or vegetarian patients and omnivorous patients were considered eligible. A two-stage screening process was conducted for study selection. Data extraction focused on the primary outcome-any wound healing outcome-and secondary outcomes, which included study general information, laboratory values, limitations, and future perspectives.

Results: Eight studies were included in this review. The majority of publications (87.5%) were prospective studies. Papers reported diverse wound healing outcomes after the following interventions: fractional microneedle radiofrequency, laser surgery, microfocused ultrasound, narrow-band ultraviolet B phototherapy, ultrapulsed CO2 resurfacing, excisional biopsy, skin graft, and photodynamic therapy. In almost all studies (87.5%) wound healing outcomes were statistically inferior in vegan or vegetarian patients compared to omnivorous patients.

Conclusion: Our results suggest that wound healing outcomes may be suboptimal in patients adhering to vegan or vegetarian diets, indicating that these dietary patterns might contribute adversely to the wound healing process. Future research is needed to understand better the underlying mechanisms and the potential implications in the preoperative assessment and postoperative course of these patients.

No level assigned: This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each submission to which Evidence-Based Medicine rankings are applicable. This excludes Review Articles, Book Reviews, and manuscripts that concern Basic Science, Animal Studies, Cadaver Studies, and Experimental Studies. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266.

Keywords: Diet, vegetarian; Diet, western; Omnivorous; Systematic review, diet, Vegan; Treatment outcome; Vegans.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Conflict of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest to disclose. Human and Animal Rights: This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors. Informed Consent: For this type of study informed consent is not required.

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