GET HEALTHY WITH JANET LEVINE, R.D.N. D.M.D.

Janet Levine RDN, DMD

My story: I am a registered dietitian nutritionist, and I have always been fascinated with nutrition and the effects it has on our health.  Eleven years ago, I would have never thought that not only would I be eating what we know as “vegan” but also teaching people that whole-food plant-based nutrition is the way to eat to be healthy, and to avoid the need for long term use of medications.  As a registered dietitian nutritionist, my training emphasized that we need to include meat, dairy and eggs in our diet. 

Eleven years ago, I met a 76 year-old man who appeared to be extremely physically fit.  I learned that five years earlier he had been instructed by a nutritionist on how to follow a whole-food plant-based diet.  He continued to tell me that over a 6-month period of time he lost 40 pounds of excess weight and was no longer taking blood pressure medication, blood thinner, cholesterol medication or medication for type 2 diabetes.  He then wrote on a piece of paper the name of the book, "The China Study,” and suggested I read it…… I did not read it.  I still felt based on my traditional  nutrition training that vegan/ plant-based was not a healthy way of eating.

Two weeks later I was having a conversation with a business colleague, and the topic of nutrition came up.  He said “Read The China Study, it saved my daughter in law’s life. She had breast cancer, and treatment with Whole-Food Plant-Based Nutrition helped to cure it."   I bought the book and read it cover to cover (more than once).  It made so much sense to me. 
Next I watched the documentary "Forks over Knives". It is about the research done by T. Colin Campbell, PhD Nutritionist, the author of the book (The China Study), and about well-known surgeon Caldwell Esselstyn, MD, who treated cardiac patients and successfully reversed heart disease with plant-based nutrition. The documentary was convincing, and I was on board.  I wanted to learn more about this, so I decided to take the Whole- Food Plant-Based nutrition course at the T. Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies, and obtained the Plant-Based Nutrition Certificate.

It has been more than 11 years now that my husband and I are eating plant-based.  Initially, both of us experienced a significant drop in our elevated cholesterol levels to within normal range, so that the doctors no longer wanted us to take a statin. 
I have also witnessed health improvements in clients I have worked with including: 

• Eliminating acid reflux

• Reversing Type 2 Diabetes

• Reversing high blood pressure

• Improving irritable bowel syndrome

• Healing eczema

• Taking off excess weight without feeling deprived.

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