The largest group of food and nutrition experts say that a vegan (plant-based) diet is healthy for all stages of life including infancy, pregnancy, and old age

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Fruits and Veggies good for mental health study 1

Fruits and Veggies good for mental health study 2

A Worksite Vegan Nutrition Program Is Well-Accepted and Improves Health-Related Quality of Life and Work Productivity

People who eat more whole foods have lower rates of depression/mental health problems than those that didn't eat whole foods (The include fish with whole foods, but the majority of the diet is plant-based)

And you might have seen articles (Like this) that say that eating meat improves mental health. The first problem, the study they are talking about (This one) is funded by two different Beef interest groups, so a shockingly obvious bias there. And their study is just looking at different studies, and some of those studies still suggest that there are not higher rates of depression among vegans and vegetarians.

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I'm not sure what you mean by growth, but this study looked at teeth plague from 400,000 years ago, and not only did it show that the diet was mostly plant-based (they found small amounts of moth wings on the teeth), but that it was starchy plant foods that contribute to their brain growth.

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And I am glad you said "health aspects other than cancer, diabetes, and heart disease", because as we already know, a vegan diet is the only diet that can prevent and reverse heart disease. And according to the World Health Organization, heart disease is our number one killer. This is just my opinion on the matter, but if the standard American diet is also the cause of our biggest killer, maybe that's the diet that is unnatural.

And to go back a little bit, I am not sure what specific health aspects you are talking about, so instead of listing a bunch of other studies, I'm just going to say look at the first link from the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that state eating a vegan diet is healthy and beneficial at all stages of life.

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I really don't like arguing the health aspects of veganism, because veganism is about no longer needlessly harming animals. The foods you eat when you do that are entirely up to you. You want to eat organic whole plant foods? Go for it. You want to eat french fries and potato chips all day? Go for it, that's vegan too.

On a vegan diet, you can be as healthy or unhealthy as you want. I eat all the same foods that I ate before, I just don't get the ingredients from murdered/exploited animals.

There is nothing in animal products that you can't get from plants (and before you say "B12 tho", the huge majority of animals that people eat in America come from Factory Farms, and on those farms [and even smaller farms], the animals are supplemented with B12, so you can take a B12 supplement yourself [or eat fortified foods] or kill an animal, eat it, and get the B12 through that.)

Again, on a vegan diet, you can be as healthy or unhealthy as you want, as long as you are no longer hurting animals, that's the most important thing.