Excerpts from an editorial by Neal Barnard MD, President of the Physicians Committee published in the Good Medicine Journal, Spring 2021
He came as a patient with excess weight, high cholesterol, diabetes, and severe artery disease to see his physician. He asked his doctor about a vegan diet. But his doctor talked him out of it. Instead, he recommended the Mediterranean diet which “is just as effective and a lot easier to follow.” A year later, I saw him again. The Mediterranean diet had done nothing for his weight, and he was still struggling with diabetes, and high cholesterol.
[Tragically] Many clinicians have bought into the notion that a Mediterranean diet is an easy and attractive way to health. In contrast, they imagine a vegan [-low-fat, whole food] diet as a challenge that patients may not be ready for. “We can’t push our patients too far” is the idea. “We need to meet them where they are.”
Yes, we do need to meet patients where they are. They are in the waiting room. They are waiting for a plan that will help them reach their health goals—whether that means eliminating unwanted weight, reducing medications, or reversing diabetes.