TOPLINE:

A vegan, allergy-friendly meal alternative demonstrated comparable performance to the standard egg-based meal for gastric emptying scintigraphy, with consistent agreement in retention times and emptying rates.

METHODOLOGY:

• Gastric emptying scintigraphy is the gold standard for evaluating gastroparesis; the technique commonly uses a ^99mtechnetium-labeled egg meal, but its animal-derived ingredients create barriers for those with egg allergy or those who follow vegan, plant-based, or allergen-restricted diets.
• This study aimed to evaluate a standardized vegan meal (JUST Egg), primarily made of mung beans and free of egg, dairy, gluten, and nuts, with caloric and nutritional equivalence to the standard egg meal.
• The randomized, crossover study included 10 healthy adult volunteers (five men and five women) free of gastrointestinal symptoms who underwent gastric emptying scintigraphy with both the standard egg meal and the vegan meal spaced 3-14 days apart.
• The analysis included the measurement of gastric retention at 2 and 4 hours and gastric emptying half-time for the vegan meal compared with that for the standard egg meal.

TAKEAWAY:

• The vegan and standard egg meals demonstrated consistent agreement for gastric retention at 2 and 4 hours as well as for gastric emptying half-time. The mean difference for gastric emptying half-time was less than 10 minutes, and < 2% and < 10% for gastric emptying at 4 and 2 hours, respectively.
• The coefficient of variation for gastric emptying half-time between both meals was 18.8%, lower than the coefficient for intraindividual variability for the standard egg meal, which previously had been established at 23.8%.

IN PRACTICE:

“This study suggests that a vegan egg alternative is likely a great alternative based on the results of our in vitro and clinical pilot study,” the authors wrote. “Additional testing in a larger cohort of healthy volunteers and patients with known gastroparesis would confirm the suitability [of this option] as an alternative to the standard egg meal.”

SOURCE:

The study was presented by Kara J. Jencks, MD, of Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, at the ACG 2025 Annual Scientific Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 28, 2025.

LIMITATIONS:

The authors did not discuss any limitations.

DISCLOSURES:

Some authors declared being consultants for, receiving grant or research support from, holding stock options of, and having other ties with various pharmaceutical companies.

This article was created using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.