As I mentioned in last week’s post, San Francisco Days… and PBNHC 2019, it was my great pleasure and privilege to be able to attend the 7th annual International Plant-Based Nutrition Healthcare Conference in Oakland, California, held 22-25 September 2019.
Ever since I first attended this conference in 2014, it has held a special place in my heart. It’s a rare experience indeed for me to be among health practitioners who truly understand the power of plant-based nutrition to restore and optimise human health.
Around 1100 medical practitioners, physicians’ assistants, dietitians, nutritionists, health coaches, personal trainers, physiotherapists, naturopaths, students, and interested members of the public attended.
We were treated to a stellar line-up of presenters from a broad spectrum of medical specialities, in addition to researchers in both human and soil health.
Here are the conference Cliff Notes:
- Dean Ornish, one of the founding fathers of the Lifestyle Medicine movement, took us on a whirlwind tour of his 5 decades of pioneering research in the treatment and even reversal of coronary artery disease, type 2 diabetes, early stage prostate cancer and now, Alzheimer’s disease. While the medical model views these diseases as separate entities with distinct causes, biological mechanisms and treatments, Dr Ornish has come to see all chronic disease as simply variations on a theme, driven by the same fundamental causes – inappropriate diet, insufficient physical activity, inadequate resources for coping with stress, insufficient love and connection. In other words, the lion’s share of the answer to all chronic disease is for us to eat better, move more, stress less and love more!
- William Li summarised his decades of research into angiogenesis, the mechanism by which new blood vessels develop in our bodies. Echoing Dean Ornish’s conclusion that the seemingly infinite variety of chronic diseases that afflict humans are, at a fundamental level, unitary, Li pointed out that dysregulated angiogenesis – either too little or too much, underlie everything from endometriosis to macular degeneration to coronary artery disease to cancer.
- Nicole Avena, Brie Turner-McGrievy and Garth Davis all presented different facets of the internal and external obstacles that people face when attempting to change their way of eating for the better. Addiction to hyperpalatable food, unhealthy social norms and a history of failed dieting all throw up daunting barriers to adopting and maintaining a wholefood plant-based diet, and no amount of education on the benefits of this way of eating will overcome those barriers, because they’re not caused by an information deficit!
- Jimmy Conway, who specialises in shoulder reconstruction surgery, delivered a spell-binding presentation on the hidden connections between nutrition and the health of our connective tissues, especially tendons. His conclusion, backed up by the research literature, is that rotator cuff tears are essentially a ‘heart attack’ in the shoulder.
- Gastroenterologist Angie Sadeghi gave the big thumbs-down to the indiscriminate and long-term use of the low FODMAP diet, and presented a strong case for improving dietary diversity in people who suffer from functional gut disorders such as IBS and bloating.
- Cyrus Khambatta drew on his own experience as a type 1 diabetic, his PhD research into the mechanisms of insulin resistance, and the lessons learned from coaching thousands of diabetics in the Mastering Diabetes program that he co-founded with Robbie Barbaro, to present a lively ‘in the round’ demonstration of how insulin resistance develops and how to overcome it. Spoiler alert: eat a very low fat wholefood plant-based diet!
- Both paediatrician Jackie Busse and renowned physician Joel Fuhrman made a compelling case for raising children on a nutrient-dense diet of whole plant foods, and protecting their vulnerable bodies and minds from the disease-promoting, intelligence-robbing effects of the ultraprocessed, hyperpalatable ‘edible food-like’ substances that are so aggressively marketed to them from a young age.
- Jeff Tkach’s presentation on the devastating effect of modern agricultural practices on the health and fertility of soil, and the knock-on effects of this on human health, was sobering. It’s not enough to just eat plants; if we wish to be optimally healthy now and be capable of producing nutritious food for future generations, we need to pay much more attention to the manner in which those plants were grown.
- Cardiologist Columbus Batiste urged the audience to broaden our attentional lens beyond diet when attempting to address cardiovascular disease, pointing out that stress and insufficient social support are on par with smoking as risk factors for heart conditions.
- Neurologists Dean and Ayesha Sherzai shared their own poignant stories of losing beloved family members to Alzheimer’s disease, and then delivered the hopeful message that even those of us with a strong genetic predisposition to dementia can substantially reduce our risk and/or delay the onset of this dreaded disease, by optimising our nutrition, sleep, exercise, stress management and cognitive stimulation.
- Health care administrator Marcy Madrid gave a compelling account of how her own nutrition-fuelled recovery from multiple sclerosis galvanised her into making substantive change in the hospital system that employs her, and offered tips for all the frustrated doctors in the audience who are itching to make their workplaces centres of health rather than disease management!
- Neal Barnard, founder of the Physician’s Committe for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) was the very worthy recipient of this year’s PBNHC Luminary Award. His overview of the groundbreaking work that PCRM has done in reforming medical education and government food policy was beautifully counterpointed by Hana Kahleova’s deep dive into some of the studies she has conducted since becoming PCRM’s research director. This research is illuminating the vast range of mechanisms by which a low fat wholefood plant-based diet facilitates weight loss, improvement in biomarkers such as serum cholesterol and blood pressure, and resolution of challenging conditions such as migraines and rheumatoid arthritis. Without such research, the broader medical community will never accept that a breathtakingly simple intervention – getting people to eat healthy food – could possibly have the dramatic and powerful effects on human health and longevity that those of us working in the field see every day, in our practices.
- Nutrition Facts founder and all-round plant-based nutrition rock star Michael Greger delivered a tour de force, summarising the research literature on what works – and what doesn’t – for healthy and sustainable weight loss. Spoiler alert #2: it’s a low calorie density wholefood plant-based diet!
Leave A Response