"My plant-based journey started just about 9 years ago when I had a patient who came into my office. Mind you: I was in rural Colorado in a little town called Rifle, Colorado. So there wasn't a whole lot of plant-based or vegan-friendly restaurants or options."

"I had a patient come to see me who had complained about all sorts of issues but in particular she said that meat and diary upset her stomach! I said, "Well, stop eating meat and dairy!" I kinda left it at that. I didn't really go into what to eat because I knew there was food that she could eat. I made a note of that in her chart.

"She [the patient] came back in 30 days — kinda like an elimination diet. What happened? She said she felt better but she brought her daughter with her at the same time. Now her daughter at the time was 16 years old and she (mom) said, "Tell Dr Marbas what you did!"

She [daughter] said, "Well, I supported my mom with her changing her diet and I felt so good that I stopped my ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder) medicine all on my own in the last 30 days! And I don't think I need them!" And I was like, "Whoa!" And her mom as like, "So Dr Marbas, why was she able to do that?" Not that she was angry but she was delighted that that had happened. She was like, "my kid's been on all these medicines for years! why hasn't someone told me that all I need to do is to change her diet and she could have come off of it." I said, "I don't know but that's the coolest thing I have ever heard."

So we went into quite a bit of an interview on what they were eating. She goes, "We had fruits, vegetables, beans and grains because that's all that's left when we pull out meat and dairy! And remember, we don't live in a place with many restaurants, much less vegan-friendly restaurants. So they bought their food at the local grocery shopping center. So they did most of their cooking at home. They weren't buying processed junk food. And they both felt great!

So after that appointment, I dove into Google and said, "what is this plant-based diet and ADD." The first thing that came up was Dr T Colin Campbell's book: "The China Study!" I ordered it from Amazon. The next thing I know is it's coming. It's bout 400 pages and I read it in two days! I was amazed! There literally is evidence of turning off and on cancer. And that was just the beginning.

The next step was like, "Hmm. So now what am I gonna do? I have this incredible evidence laid in front of me. I have sick patients but I also have my own life: my husband and my own three kids. At the time, they were 13, 15 and 18. What do I do?" "Let me test this on one more patient before I make this complete jump and change to myself and my family. Plus I wanted to spend a little more time researching it to wrap my head around the whole thing."

And I had a lupus patient come in during that time. She had been diagnosed about two years earlier. She was fairly sick. She had 12 different medications, including highest doses of steroids. She was on chemotherapy drugs that really suppress the immune system because lupus is an autimmune disease, meaning that the body attacks itself, and in some cases it can be terminal. It's a very difficult disease to manage and can actually be horrendous to deal with. And she was younger than me at that time. What was interesting was that when she came in, she would talk about her migraines. She was having migraines most days of the week. She was about 50 lbs overweight and she was like, "I don't know what else to do! I don't think I'm gonna be able to keep working. And I'm just tired." And I said, "Hmm, this is probably the perfect opportunity." So I spoke to her regarding eating a plant-based diet. I told her about the other patient. I told her, "I don't have a lot of information but I have about two weeks' worth of knowledge. So would you be willing to kinda be my test patient and see how you do?" She goes, "I'll give anything a try."

Before she left that day, we measured a thing called CRP; it's an inflammatory marker in the body, very commonly elevated in autoimmune diseases. We measured it that day. It was 3 times the high normal. I said, "Come back in 14 days. I can't wait more than 14 days; I'm so excited about what potentially might happen." So she came back in 14 days and lo and behold, her CRP had dropped to just outside normal. She was down 8 lbs. Her migraines were better and she felt amazing! Fast forward five months: she was 50 lbs lighter, off 7 of 12 medications including her lupus medications. And I was convinced at that 2-week mark.

I went home and walked in the door, threw down my purse, and said, "That's it! We're going on a plant-based diet!"