Scientist Profile

Dr. Neal D. Barnard is a non-practicing psychiatrist who enjoys playing the cello, guitar, and keyboards in his free time. Nevertheless, the life and work of Dr. Barnard is an example of Personal Growth. However, how this began? What were the events that shaped and solidified the career of this son of a physician who grew up in Fargo, North Dakota? Everything started a year before attending graduate school at George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences in Washington D.C. At that time, Dr. Neal D. Barnard worked as a morgue assistant at Minneapolis Hospital. The duties from this occupation varied from one day to another, but the most common was the examination of bodies from people who had just passed away. One day, Dr. Barnard and his mentor were inspecting the body of a victim who suffered a heart attack. The examination of the coronary arteries and the heart remained etched in his mind. Dr. Barnard acknowledges during an interview in 2013 by host Ed Sutkowski at the Program: Interesting People “The victim’s arteries were clogged with fat deposits.”[1]Later that day ribs were served in the hospital cafeteria. However, the sight of those ribs was so similar to the human ribs that he simply could not eat them. That scene, in particular, became the event that sent Dr. Barnard to adopt a vegan diet.

As time went on, Dr. Barnard became more aware of the relationship of what we eat and our health. That thought solidified during his journey through medical school. In College, Dr. Barnard became aware of the sparse information on the field of nutrition. In an interview conducted by Attorney Mark Huberman on 2017 and sponsored by the National Health Organization, Dr. Barnard said, “There was nothing meaningful about nutritional education, there were a few lectures on the biochemistry of the vitamins, but it was theoretical and largely irrelevant to health.”[2]Eventually, both anecdotes became the catapults that sent Dr. Barnard on a path to raising awareness in the controversial role of diets in cardiovascular, weight, and malignant diseases.

After receiving his medical certification in psychiatry, Dr. Barnard moved to New York to work in St. Vincent’s Hospital as a psychiatrist. The usual patients in the hospital suffered from a mixture of medical and mental health issues: for example, patients with HIV that had an infected brain with mania. Also, patients with intensive care unit (ICU) and different types of delusional disorders. The duties demanded a growing demand for experience in psychiatry and physical medicine. In the words of Dr. Barnard “that work was at the interface of psychiatry and physical medicine.”[3]The attention and treatment of multiple people was an exhausting task. However, Dr. Barnard began to question whether there would be any way to avoid these illnesses. To his surprise, Dr. Barnard was not the only one with this idea as other colleagues were also interested in the same though. Eventually, Dr. Barnard and his twelve colleagues decided to set up a group of doctors with the intention of writing papers on social, medical, and animal issues. Immediately, the group began advocating for the prevention of nutritional diseases and, cardiovascular diseases instead of waiting for those diseases to appear in their offices. Everything started in a small folding table at Dr. Barnard’s apartment. Sooner or later and without the awareness of Dr. Barnard, that group became the central pillar to the further creation of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) in 1985.

As a formal organization, the goals of the group changed. Now the group specialized in the argumentative persuasion of the health benefits of a plant-based diet through clinical research, experimental models, and scientific publications. Thus, to this day the group has more than 150,000 members, among them physicians, doctors, dietitians, and research scientists. Dr. Barnard began to gain the spotlight of the scientific community with one research paper in specific: A low-fat vegan diet improves glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors in a randomized clinical trial in individuals with type II diabetes. In this research, Dr. Barnard tremendously brings out a radical conclusion “Both a low-fat vegan diet and a diet based on American Diabetes Association (ADA) guidelines improved glycemic and lipid control in type II diabetic patients.”[4]However, Dr. Barnard indicated that these improvements were greater with a low-fat vegan diet. In other words, a plant-based diet could have more favorable results on lowering the number of triglycerides and cholesterol. Subsequently, the scientific community and doctors around the U.S responded to the research by indicating that any very low-calorie diet and a low carb diet can help improve Type II diabetes if it follows. Although the topic in question is argumentative and can be contradictory to the general knowledge of diets and diseases, that research just boosted the stance of Dr. Barnard in this conversation. Eventually, his team came to publish clinical reports with a number of journals among which stand the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, and Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics among others.

Afterward, and as his publication begun gaining seriousness, Dr. Barnard progressively challenged the wisdom over tackling, cardiovascular, and cerebrovascular diseases by implying that healthy lifestyle choices may reduce the risk of having such diseases. In the research paper: Vegetarian Dietary Patterns and Cardiovascular Disease, Dr. Barnard was quoted “plant-based diets are the only dietary pattern to have shown a reversal of coronary heart diseases, the same with evidence suggesting the benefits of vegetarian dietary patterns in both the prevention and the treatment of heart failure and cerebrovascular diseases.”[5]This possibility was not even present in his father mind who was a diabetes expert at that time. As Dr. Barnard recalls in an interview with host Ed Sutkowski at Interesting People in 2013 “In my father’s office every patient with diabetes would be sent to a dietitian to limit sugar and carbohydrates, but there was not really any attempt to reverse the disease.”[6]Even though this conclusion was premature and favorable to the vegetarian/vegan community, the research set the stage to a whole new discussion on the role of foods in health and specifically the role of plant-based diets in the cure of type II diabetes.

As time went on, Dr. Barnard decided to redirect his research to a sensitive topic in medicine. At 2017 in an interview by Attorney Mark Huberman, Dr. Barnard recognized that “If was a question of learning and interacting how our foods affect our health.”[7]Throughout following that logic, Dr. Barnard encountered one of the most remarkable things that blew his mind- learning about cancer. At medical school Dr. Barnard though that cancer was being caused by simple factors. However, when he began to read the literature on breast, colon and prostate cancer, it became clear that there were strong links to diet. Nonetheless, such claim was not well research at that time, but that eventually lead his cause to see the possibility of not treating cancer but instead to prevent it. Eventually, in 2016 Dr. Barnard officially opened the Barnard Medical Center in Washington D.C. The center mission statement is as clear as water since the same is highly influenced by Dr. Barnard point of view. Dr. Barnard wrote on the Barnard Medical Center official website “The goal has always been to educate people on the effects that diet has on health. Now with the opening of the Barnard Medical Center, we (PCRM) can put those goals into action by helping patients reduce the risk and even reverse health conditions such as heart diseases, diabetes, cancer, and obesity.”[8]Regardless of his philosophy Dr. Barnard continued leading plenty of research studies investigating the effects of diet on diabetes, body weight, and chronic pain. One of his most remarkable studies being the study of dietary interventions in type II diabetes founded in 2018 by the National Institute of Health. In this research, Dr. Barnard remarked that “plant-based (vegan) diets improve diabetes management, typically reducing weight, glycemia, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.”[9]Many doctors remain skeptical about Dr. Barnard claims since the same can be cataloged as a generalization, also the fact that its research implies a correlation between vegan patterns and diseases ignoring the idea that correlation does not imply causation.

Notwithstanding, one of the causes that Dr. Barnard has been deeply connected since the start of the twelve people group has been the use and dissection of animals required by students in medical schools. In medical school and before developing a concern for the animals, Dr. Barnard found himself confronted with the duty of having to experiment on and kill dogs as part of a laboratory exercise. For National Health Association magazine Dr. Barnard acknowledge “I just knew that I did not have to kill anybody or any animal to learn.”[10]As his career began to gain shape, Dr. Barnard visualized the mission of raising awareness of the use of animals in medical schools. As Dr. Barnard claims, one of his most significant accomplishments has been his contribution and work devoted to eliminating this practice as part of the curriculum. The use of animals for research or as part of the academic curriculum is a practice that often leads to the dissection and murder of the animal. Dr. Barnard shared for National Health Association Magazine “Every single medical school in the U.S and Canada that gives M.D or D.O. degrees has eliminated the use of animals for the curriculum, and that would not have happened had we not pushed them pretty hard. We finally completed that work in 2016”.[11]Dr. Barnard acknowledges on the official PCRM website that this was a group work “this work is done after more than three decades of pressure, by using sponsoring of celebrities, lawsuits, and hand on hand collaborations with other groups and prestigious universities such as Harvard University.”[12]Still, it is unlikely that this affirmation is the result of Dr. Barnard efforts as he claims. There is not enough evidence to support his declarations and the fact that he mentioned the Harvard University and only his own words without any sort of data or evidence might it be an appeal to authority. However, the only evidence found at the moment shows that Dr. Barnard has been and is associated with animal rights groups since the start of the PCRM.

Currently, Dr. Barnard directs the Barnard Medical Center. In 2016 at the United States Dr. Barnard was granted with the recipient of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine’s Trailblazer Award. An award founded in 2015 and presented by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and the Lifestyle Medicine Foundation. “This award recognizes leadership, innovation, and contributions to the field of Lifestyle Medicine in the several domains of Patient Care, Education, Research, Management, and Community Service.”[13]Moreover, Dr. Barnard is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology. A non-profit medical association founded in 1949, whose mission is “to transform cardiovascular care and to improve heart health.”[14]Until this day Dr. Barnard has authored more than 70 scientific publications, as well as 18 best-seller books. The data of his publications is the center of discussions where he and other skeptical specialists in the field have come to critic the nurture of conventional diets and its relationship with cancer, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes II epidemic in the United States. In an interview over the results of avoiding animal products with host Ed Sutkowski in the program interesting people from 2013 Dr. Barnard was quoted “The very things that destroyed my grandparents and even my father are the foods that many families, included mine, were involved in raising.”[15]

As part of the PCRM mission, Dr. Barnard has appeared in endless interviews, T.V programs, documentaries, and cited in research papers. The mixture of these factors makes Dr. Barnard an ideal controversial candidate since its point of view can be the leading cause of many questions and doubts by the scientific community. This is the case because when reading and analyzing his publications one needs to be skeptical and be wary of not falling for logical fallacies. Still, his contributions to the animal use in research, the endless number of patients that receive consult from the Barnard Medical Center, and his participation on the conversion about plant-based diet efficacy on fighting diseases make Dr. Barnard an interesting figure to research on.

Footnotes 

[1]Ed Sutkowski. (2013). “Interesting People” [Television Series]. Peoria, IL: WTVP. (00:01:44-00:28:38)

[2]Barnard, Neal. (2017). An interview with Neal Barnard, M.D., F.A.C.C. National Health Association. Page 1. Retrieved from:https://www.healthscience.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/feature/HealthScienceFall2017_Interview_Barnard.pdf.

[3]Barnard, Neal. (2017). An interview with Neal Barnard, M.D., F.A.C.C. National Health Association. Page 2. Retrieved from:https://www.healthscience.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/feature/HealthScienceFall2017_Interview_Barnard.pdf.

[4]Barnard, N. D., Cohen, J., Jenkins, D. J. A., Turner-McGrievy, G., Gloede, L., Jaster, B., …Talpers, S. (2006). A low-fat vegan diet improves glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors in a randomized clinical trial in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care, 29(8), Page 1777.

[5]Kahleova, H., Levin, S., & Barnard, N. D. (2018). Vegetarian Dietary Patterns and Cardiovascular Disease. Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 61(1), Page 54.

[6]Ed Sutkowski. (2013). “Interesting People” [Television Series]. Peoria, IL: WTVP. (00:02:33-00:28:38)

[7]Barnard, Neal. (2017). An interview with Neal Barnard, M.D., F.A.C.C. National Health Association. Page 2. Retrieved from:https://www.healthscience.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/feature/HealthScienceFall2017_Interview_Barnard.pdf.

[8]Barnard, Neal. (2016). Understanding Health. pcrm.org. Retrieved from: www.pcrm.org/barnard-medical-center/understanding-health

[9]Barnard, N. D., Levin, S. M., Gloede, L., & Flores, R. (2018). Turning the Waiting Room into a Classroom: Weekly Classes Using a Vegan or a Portion-Controlled Eating Plan Improve Diabetes Control in a Randomized Translational Study. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 118(6), Page 1072.

[10]Barnard, Neal. (2017). An interview with Neal Barnard, M.D., F.A.C.C. National Health Association. Page 3. Retrieved from:https://www.healthscience.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/feature/HealthScienceFall2017_Interview_Barnard.pdf.

[11]Barnard, Neal. (2017). An interview with Neal Barnard, M.D., F.A.C.C. National Health Association. Page 3. Retrieved from:https://www.healthscience.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/feature/HealthScienceFall2017_Interview_Barnard.pdf.

[12]Barnard, Neal. (2016). Understanding Health. pcrm.org. Retrieved from: www.pcrm.org/barnard-medical-center/understanding-health

[13]Lifestyle Medicine Trailblazer. (2015). American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Retrieved October 11, 2018 from: https://www.lifestylemedicine.org/Lifestyle-Medicine-Trailblazer-Award

[14]American College of Cardiology. (2018). American College of Cardiology. Retrieved October 11, 2018 from: https://www.acc.org/#sort=%40fcommonsortdate86069%20descending

[15]Ed Sutkowski. (2013). “Interesting People” [Television Series]. Peoria, IL: WTVP. (00:03:33-00:28:38)

 

Works Cited

American College of Cardiology. (2018). American College of Cardiology. Retrieved October 11, 2018 from: https://www.acc.org/#sort=%40fcommonsortdate86069%20descending

Barnard, Neal. (2017). An interview with Neal Barnard, M.D., F.A.C.C. National Health Association. Retrieved from: https://www.healthscience.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/feature/HealthScienceFall2017_Interview_Barnard.pdf

Barnard, Neal. (2016). Understanding Health. pcrm.org. Retrieved from: www.pcrm.org/barnard-medical-center/understanding-health

Barnard, N. D., Cohen, J., Jenkins, D. J. A., Turner-McGrievy, G., Gloede, L., Jaster, B., …Talpers, S. (2006). A low-fat vegan diet improves glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors in a randomized clinical trial in individuals with type 2 diabetes. Diabetes Care, 29(8), Pages 1777+.

Barnard, N. D., Levin, S. M., Gloede, L., & Flores, R. (2018). Turning the Waiting Room into a Classroom: Weekly Classes Using a Vegan or a Portion-Controlled Eating Plan Improve Diabetes Control in a Randomized Translational Study. Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, 118(6), Pages 1072-1079.

Ed Sutkowski. (2013). “Interesting People” [Television Series]. Peoria, IL: WTVP.

Kahleova, H., Levin, S., & Barnard, N. D. (2018). Vegetarian Dietary Patterns and Cardiovascular Disease. Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases, 61(1), Page 54+.

Lifestyle Medicine Trailblazer. (2015). American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Retrieved October 11, 2018 from: https://www.lifestylemedicine.org/Lifestyle-Medicine-Trailblazer-Award