Interview

By Mark Huberman

This interview originally appeared in the Summer 2016 issue of Health Science magazine, the member magazine of the National Health Association, of which interviewer Mark Huberman is the president.

Dr. Anthony Lim is a board-certified family physician with a special interest in whole-food, plant-based nutrition. Dr. Lim grew up in San Diego, and upon completing his undergraduate studies at Stanford University in human biology (Phi Beta Kappa, 1998), he went on an extended journey that included studying Mandarin and traveling in China for one year, as well as working as a management consultant, and teaching 5th through 8th grade math as an Americorps volunteer. Dr. Lim obtained a law degree from Harvard Law School in 2004 and subsequently passed the California Bar Exam. After much soul searching, he realized that his true calling was in medicine, graduating from Boston University School of Medicine in 2010.

Dr. Lim, how are you this evening?

I am doing great. I’m sitting right here in my office at TrueNorth with my new dog, Balto. He is fast asleep right by my feet. He’s a poodle mix that our family recently adopted from a local shelter. Dr. Goldhamer has graciously allowed me to bring him to work, and today was his first day. He has been a hit with the patients and staff alike, and many joked that he is now the new therapy dog.

My late father used to say that most people don’t worry about their health until they’ve lost it, and they don’t really change their way of thinking until they have some sort of a health crisis. But as I understand, that wasn’t the case with you. Tell me about how you learned about whole-food, plant-based nutrition.

It’s a pretty funny story. I first learned of the whole-food, plant-based movement in July of 2014. Believe it or not, at that time I was eating a low-carb diet, and there were a couple of years during my residency training that I was actually advocating a low-carb diet for many of my patients.

However, in July of 2014, I happened to be watching PBS and saw Dr. Joel Fuhrman come on the television. I had never heard his name before, but he was giving a presentation on whole-food, plant-based eating. This was the first time I had ever heard those four words mentioned together. He was making these amazing claims about the power of a whole-food, plant-based diet to not just prevent, but actually reverse and cure, chronic illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes, autoimmune disease, hypertension, and high cholesterol, and it really piqued my interest.

The very next day I checked out Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live from the public library. That same day, I read his book cover to cover, proceeded to watch Forks Over Knives and Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead on Netflix, and by the next morning I was officially a convert to the plant-based movement. I have not looked back since! You know when you see and hear the truth face to face, you can’t deny it. I would say that since that point I have had an ever-increasing, confidence that this is the right way to live and I have, in my own mind, committed the rest of my life to this movement.

Above: Dr. Lim with his family

One of the things I often hear is that in medical school they don’t teach anything about nutrition. Was that your experience earning your medical degree at Boston University? Did you really have no exposure to nutrition?

I know, it’s crazy, isn’t it? For the life of me I cannot remember a single lecture about nutrition. The only exposure I recall was more of an afterthought; for example, telling patients to try to eat more fruits and vegetables at the end of a visit. Considering that the vast majority of chronic illness is so strongly connected to what we eat, we must take steps to incorporate more nutrition education into medical school curriculums.

So when you had this epiphany about the wisdom and power of a whole-foods, plant-based diet, did that change both your personal and professional life?

It dramatically changed both. Personally, my diet has changed significantly to include far more fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, and far less animal products and processed foods. Before my “conversion moment” and during my low-carb phase, I was avoiding foods such as rice, potatoes, and oatmeal, which are now staples of my diet. I also ate far more meat; I even recall once going to In-N-Out Burger and eating not just one but two low-carb burgers consisting of two beef patties, tomato, and onion wrapped in leaves of lettuce. I had the misguided belief that it was fine for me to eat as much meat as I wanted as long as I minimized my carbohydrate intake.

My professional life has also dramatically changed. Previously, I worked in the Family Medicine department at Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa, California, providing general clinical care to children and adults. Since going plant-based, I continue to work at Kaiser, but only a half-day per week. I also co-lead their monthly plant-based class along with a nutritionist, Melanie Larson. This class is Kaiser Santa Rosa’s most attended group class, with anywhere from 40 to 60 people in attendance each month, which shows the growing interest of the public in this area. We frequently have guest speakers, including Dr. Ben Brown, the Medical Director of Dr. Dean Ornish’s Lifestyle Medicine Program, and this August, Dr. John McDougall will be our guest speaker. In addition to my work at Kaiser, I also serve as the Medical Director of the McDougall Program and as a staff physician at TrueNorth Health Center. Essentially, I have migrated from 100% general clinical care to a mixed practice that is focused on healthy living, primarily through a whole-food, plant-based diet.

As a result of your own conversion, did you lose weight and experience other improvements in your overall health?

I was already relatively healthy before becoming plant-based. I was very active and was not overweight. However, I would say that since going plant-based my overall health has improved even further. For example, I lost about fifteen pounds and went down two waist sizes despite eating as much food as I wanted. Friends of mine are sometimes shocked at the amount of food that I consume. In addition to losing weight, my cholesterol numbers, though not bad to begin with, improved as well.

I imagine you also began to feel better along the way?

Absolutely! I now have good energy, my GI plumbing is working better, I feel less heavy and tired, especially in the afternoons, and overall I feel very “clean” inside.

How did you break your plant-based news to your family?

Soon after going plant-based, I went back to my hometown of San Diego with my wife and kids to spend a week with my parents, my brother, his wife, and their three kids. On the day we arrived, I gathered everyone around and said, “I have one favor to ask during our week together: that we watch Forks Over Knives together as a family. It’s a short documentary and it will be well worth your time.” So we watched it together and the very next day my parents essentially cut out animal meat from their diet because they were so compelled by what they saw in the film. And my brother’s family has dramatically decreased their meat and dairy intake while increasing their fruit, vegetable, legume, and starch intake.

How did you find your way to Dr. Alan Goldhamer and TrueNorth?

It was August 7th, 2015—I will never forget that day. My mom, knowing of my passion for plant-based nutrition, forwarded me an email from the McDougall Newsletter that contained an announcement of a new physician opening for a joint position between the McDougall Program and TrueNorth Health Center. By this time, I knew well who both of these men were. I had heard them both lecture at different conferences, and was inspired by each of them. So you can imagine my excitement and disbelief at the prospect of being able to work closely with them. I applied immediately, and a few days later Dr. Goldhamer called me in for an interview. I showed up at 3:30PM at TrueNorth (less than a five-minute drive from where I live in Santa Rosa), and three hours later, I was offered the job. I was so shocked and even remember saying, “You know Dr. Goldhamer, I understand if you need some time and you need to interview other applicants.” But Dr. Goldhamer, being the confident and decisive person that he is, simply said, “Nope, I know what I want and you have what I want, so I’m done.” Needless to say, I accepted the job on the spot and the rest is history! I began my new positions that very month.

Above: Dr. Lim with Dr. Alan Goldhamer

I am told that your wife is an M.D. as well, a Dermatologist. What did she think of this whirlwind conversion?

She has been thrilled to witness first-hand how happy, passionate, and fulfilled I am on a daily basis in my new roles. I have known her since I was 18 years old, and she saw me through an eight-year long journey after college, exploring the worlds of foreign language, computer science, business, law, and teaching, essentially trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. So she could not be happier or more excited to see me find my true calling these last couple of years.

Has she shared your enlightenment about being plant-based?

Yes, she also eats far more plant-based now. She recently got her labs checked, and I’m happy to report that her cholesterol levels have improved dramatically since changing her diet.

I know from my many years in this health movement that it is always a great plus when your spouse is on the same page.

Absolutely! As the saying goes, “Happy wife, happy life!”

Tell me what it is like working with Dr. Goldhamer.

I am inspired by his commitment and passion toward healthy plant-based eating and the relatively unstudied field of water fasting. What Dr. Goldhamer has built here at TrueNorth is unique and like nowhere else in the United States, much less the world. He is brilliant, eloquent, charismatic, decisive, and an overall great leader. I appreciate his hands-off style of management as well. He hires the right people and then gives them the autonomy to run their own practice in the way that they see fit.

What is so special for you in working at TrueNorth?

In medicine nowadays, it is rare to witness true healing occur in your patients. More often than not what we’re doing is putting band-aids on patients in the form of medications, surgeries, and procedures, and rarely getting to the root cause of illness. And so what is so special about TrueNorth is that day after day I stand witness to patients making radical dietary and other lifestyle changes that address the root cause of their chronic conditions and, ultimately, brings them to a much healthier state.

Just today I had a one-month follow-up phone conversation with a 63-year-old male patient of mine after his four-week stay at TrueNorth. He has a history of coronary artery disease and has had a stent placed. Prior to coming to TrueNorth, he had hypertension, requiring a powerful blood pressure medication called amlodipine. He had recently learned that he had a condition called “diastasis recti,” often associated with obesity, which is basically a separation of the two sides of the rectus abdominus muscle (the abs). His surgeon told him that it would likely require surgical repair.

During his stay, he water-fasted for 15 days and transitioned to a plant-based diet, eating TrueNorth food for the remainder of his time there. In four weeks, he lost over 20 pounds, and he came off his blood pressure medication with better blood pressure than when he arrived on medication (his blood pressure on the day he left was in the 100s/70s). His follow-up labs one month after leaving the program showed that compared with his labs prior to his stay at TrueNorth, his total cholesterol had dropped by 50 points, his LDL (the bad cholesterol) had dropped by 30 points, and his triglycerides had dropped by 50 points. He was excited to report 100% adherence to the plant-based diet since leaving the program.

He had an office visit with his cardiologist a few days before our phone call. His cardiologist was shocked to see how well his blood pressure was controlled despite stopping the amlodipine. His cardiologist also backed off of his previous recommendation to start a cholesterol-lowering medication, given how much his lab values had improved in such a short amount of time.

My patient also had a follow-up visit with his surgeon for his diastasis recti. The surgeon was surprised to discover that the separation between my patient’s rectus abdominus muscle had shrunk from two finger widths to one finger width, and from 8 cm to 6 cm long. The surgeon no longer recommended surgery for him, and instead suggested that he continue to try to close the gap through continued weight loss and lifestyle change.

Finally, my patient reported feeling overall much better. He reported far more energy (he no longer woke up feeling tired in the morning), and he had reduced his coffee drinking from three cups per day to a single cup once a week! In the past, he had suffered from weekly headaches requiring high doses of aspirin. In the four weeks since leaving TrueNorth he has yet to have a single headache. In the past he had also suffered from right shoulder pain from an old injury, and had required six to eight Advil multiple times a day to control the pain. Since leaving TrueNorth, he has taken a total of two Advil. He also was very pleased with how well his GI plumbing was working. I could go on and on, but this is just one example of the kinds of miracles that we are privileged enough to witness here on a daily basis.

Above: Dr. Lim lecturing at TrueNorth

Fasting had to be an entirely new experience for you. Tell me what that education has been like?

In all honesty, I knew very little about water fasting prior to working at TrueNorth, but was excited to learn more. In a short amount of time I have developed a deep appreciation for water fasting’s ability to reset one’s palate and allow one’s body to literally heal itself from the inside-out from a multitude of conditions, as evidenced by patients such as the one I mentioned above. Dr. Goldhamer was confident from the day I first interviewed with him that within a few weeks of working here I would witness first-hand the beneficial effects of water fasting in our patients and become convinced of its healing powers. He was absolutely right!

What is the importance of fasting under professional supervision?

Common clinical issues that can arise during extended fasting beyond two to three days and that require medical intervention include: dehydration, electrolyte imbalances, and symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, weakness, and light-headedness; thus, professional supervision is critical to fasting safely.

What role does fasting play in the full recovery and maintenance of health?

I see fasting as a powerful healing modality that is complementary to whole-food, plant-based nutrition, in terms of optimizing one’s health. It is useful for anyone hoping to recover from most chronic medical conditions, as well as for those simply trying to maintain overall good health.

In an earlier conversation, you told me about another patient who had a very positive result recovering from ulcerative colitis, a condition that, in my experience, has been a very challenging one even for hygienic physicians. Can you share that case history with us?

Absolutely. I recently took care of a 32-year-old female with a long history of severe ulcerative colitis characterized by 8 to 12 episodes a day of diarrhea with blood and mucus. When I first met her she was on multiple powerful medications, including the maximum dose of an oral corticosteroid called budesonide, the maximum dose of an oral anti-inflammatory medication called mesalamine, and daily mesalamine suppositories. Despite these medications she continued to suffer from daily abdominal pain and diarrhea. She was finally prompted to seek help when her gastroenterologist suggested she start on yet another medication called azathioprine, a powerful immunosuppressant drug with adverse effects that include lymphoma and bone marrow suppression.

During our time together, both at the McDougall Program, where I first met her, and then subsequently during her three-week stay at TrueNorth, we essentially switched her from a Paleo diet, which she had been on during the months leading up to the program, to a plant-based diet that was very simple and based primarily on steamed vegetables and white rice porridge, since that was all her body could tolerate. I’m happy to report that she was not only able to come off all her medications, including the budesonide, the oral mesalamine, and the mesalamine suppository, but for the first time in years she reported having normal bowel movements. That first day she had a normally formed stool without blood and mucus she told me it had been so many years since seeing a normal stool that she had all but forgotten what one looked like. I recently followed up with her since she went back home, and she reports continuing to do well. She remains off all medications, and is slowly expanding her diet to include other foods such as sweet potato.

What are some other conditions that you have seen respond quickly and effectively to fasting and the whole-food, plant-based diet at TrueNorth?

I would say hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, and overweight/obesity are the conditions that respond the most quickly and effectively to water fasting. I have also seen remarkable outcomes in many patients with autoimmune conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, and psoriasis.

Do most people that come to TrueNorth go on a water fast?

Yes, I would estimate that roughly two-thirds or more of the patients who come to TrueNorth go on water fasts of varying lengths. Some patients who come on medications that cannot safely be discontinued may juice fast instead of water fast. Other patients come simply to stay here and eat the food—after all, the food here is truly unique. Chef Ramses Bravo and his team do an incredible job. I know of no other place in the world where a person can eat three meals a day of deliciously prepared SOS-free (salt, oil, sugar) whole, plant-based foods.

Is the great food one of the perks for you working at TrueNorth?

Oh my gosh, it’s one of the biggest perks! I am thankful each and every day to be able to enjoy the wonderfully wholesome food here at TrueNorth. Since I do not live on the premises as some of the other staff do, I frequently bring home Tupperware containers filled with TrueNorth food for the rest of my family to enjoy.

Above: Dr. Lim showing off his vegetable grilling skills!

What are your impressions of some of your other colleagues at TrueNorth, particularly your fellow M.D.s, Michael Klaper and Peter Sultana?

My colleagues across the board here at TrueNorth are exceptional. I look forward each and every day to coming to work in such a mission-driven, collegial, and supportive environment, and feel truly honored to work here. Specifically, with regard to Drs. Klaper and Sultana, they are both extremely gifted, intelligent, and caring physicians who I hold in the highest regard and who I consider to be invaluable mentors.

Are you involved in some of the medical research being conducted at TrueNorth?

Yes, and under the umbrella of the TrueNorth Health Foundation, we will be devoting ever-increasing time and energy toward expanding the research that goes on here. Recently, the British Medical Journal published a case study of one of our patients, a 42 year-old woman with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, who experienced a significant reduction in the size of her lymph nodes after a 21-day water fast followed by eating an exclusively plant-based, SOS-free diet. It is our hope to put out more case studies like this with other chronic conditions, such as ulcerative colitis and rheumatoid arthritis, in addition to conducting larger studies involving a greater number of patients.

Do you think that research demonstrating the benefits of fasting and a whole-foods, plant-based diet is one of the keys to their great acceptance?

Absolutely. The meticulous research by physicians such as Drs. Ornish, Barnard, Greger, Esselstyn, McDougall, and Campbell is the reason that the whole-food, plant-based movement is as strong as it is today.

Have you ever crossed paths with Drs. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr., T. Colin Campbell, or any of the other folks featured in Forks Over Knives?

I have heard both of them speak and have been inspired by their talks. I have also met them briefly. When I think of Drs. Campbell and Esselstyn, I think of the saying that Dr. John McDougall passed on to me: “We stand on the shoulders of the giants who come before us.” He said this in reference to the plant-based leaders who came before him, who he deeply respected and admired, individuals such as Dr. Dennis Burkitt, Dr. Walter Kempner, and Nathan Pritikin.

Have you become familiar with any of the writings of the pioneers of the modern-day Natural Hygiene Movement, like Drs. Shelton, Benesh, Esser, Gross, and more, who were some of the giants upon whose shoulders the current giants of the field stand?

Yes. I actually have Dr. Shelton’s book Fasting Can Save Your Life on my bookshelf, and it is at the top of my reading list. In time I look forward to diving more deeply into the works of Drs. Shelton, Benesh, Esser, Gross and other pioneers within the Natural Hygiene Movement.

You mentioned that one of the unique things about the TrueNorth kitchen is that it subscribes to what Alan Goldhamer has coined “Vegan SOS,” meaning plant-based with no added oil, salt, or sugar. What is the importance of avoiding these three additions to our diet?

I think the main issue is the extreme degree to which the food industry has bombarded our food supply with these substances, as illustrated by the book The Pleasure Trap, written by Drs. Doug Lisle and Alan Goldhamer. As a result, our taste buds have been hijacked by the food industry, and we are in a constant state of craving more and more. By eating only minimally processed, SOS-free, plant-based foods here at TrueNorth, patients are able to reset their taste buds and get off of their addictions to these substances.

Above: Dr. Lim with Dr. John McDougall and Mary McDougall

I have often heard Dr. Goldhamer say that putting someone on a water fast for a period of time will certainly alter their taste buds and make them look at whole-food, plant-based food in a much more positive light.

Absolutely. Many patients who come here cannot “stomach” or tolerate the food when they first arrive. After they finish their water fast and begin eating again, they report that their first bite of steamed squash or their first sip of vegetable juice tastes absolutely divine!

What is the key to keeping people compliant with this program?

That’s the million-dollar question. One of the things we hope to do is more follow-up studies to really see not only how adherent patients are to this lifestyle, but also what interventions we could do to improve compliance. Behavioral change is one of the most difficult things and, in fact, it is one of the areas that I focus on a lot in the lectures that I give here at TrueNorth, at the McDougall Program, and Kaiser Permanente.

There are several things that I have found to influence compliance, but one of the biggest is social support. If patients are able to find people who share their passion for plant-based eating, as opposed to people who are going to denigrate them for eating that way, that is huge.

Another factor is accountability. I’ve found that some patients do well, at least during that initial phase when their new habits are still taking hold, if they check in on a regular basis with someone: a close friend, a health coach, or their physician.

A third huge factor is what I call “environmental shaping,” and by that I mean they need to get rid of everything in the house or their immediate environment that could possibly tempt them to stray, and instead replace it with healthy, whole-food, plant-based foods that they can eat to their heart’s content.

The last factor is that people have to “know their why,” meaning that they really have to understand why they are trying to achieve health. It could be because they want to be around to see their grandchildren graduate from high school, because they want to run a marathon, hike a mountain, or simply feel better day to day. The more they can tap into that underlying reason that gets them fired up and motivated, and remind themselves of this on a day-to-day basis, the more they’ll be able to stick to their new dietary patterns.

Do the better foods and recipes available today make adherence to this lifestyle easier than ever before?

Yes. Recipes from people such as Jeff Novick, Katie Mae, Cathy Fisher, Chef AJ, and Ramses Bravo make eating plant-based both easy to prepare and more delicious than ever. That said, I would say that the foods that we should be eating today are actually things that we were eating a lot more of in the past, like fresh fruits and vegetables and less processed foods. As Michael Pollan says, “When you’re trying to figure out what foods to eat, eat something that your grandmother would recognize.” So I actually think we’ve had access to these foods all along. In some ways we’ve made it harder to eat these simple nutritious foods due to the rise of the fast food and processed food industries.

So do you believe that salt, oil, and sugar are the foundation of “the pleasure trap,” and that if people would simply cut them out completely they would avoid it?

Yes, I agree that salt, oil, and sugar are the foundation of “the pleasure trap.” Thus, when I see a patient and he or she admits to eating a large bag of M&Ms or an entire package of cookies in a single sitting, clearly the patient has a food addiction, and in such cases I agree with Dr. McDougall’s mantra that “moderation is not an option.” That said, I think certain healthy individuals without underlying medical conditions are able to eat a piece of candy or put a small amount of salt on their baked potato every so often without it triggering a dangerous cascade, and for these people moderations is an option. I acknowledge that this is not a view that’s shared universally by other plant-based physicians, but I tend to be more moderate in this regard. I am open to the possibility that my views will continue to evolve with time. In the end, my advice for each patient is an individual assessment that I make based on the history and medical conditions that the patient comes to me with.

Since you have been able to make this remarkable conversion and evolution in your medical thinking, are you optimistic that the light will go on for more of your colleagues?

Yes. I tend to be an optimistic person by nature, but also I have some evidence to back it up. One of the things I point to is the number of Kaiser healthcare providers who have attended The International Plant-Based Conference put on by the Plantrician Project that is now in its fourth year. The first year it was held, there were less than 5 Kaiser employees that came. The second year, which was in 2014, the same year that my father and I first attended the conference together, there were around 40 Kaiser people. Last year, in 2015, there were almost 100 Kaiser providers! So, in the space of three years we’ve gone from 5 to 40 to 100 Kaiser employees, and who knows how many there will be this year. So it definitely strikes me as a movement that is rapidly picking up momentum.

One interesting thing to note is that among the 100 people that came this past year, virtually all the medical specialties were represented. For example, at a special dinner held during the conference for the Kaiser folks, I just happened to sit at a table with a pulmonologist, a psychiatrist, a nephrologist, and an internist, and then there was myself from family medicine. On top of that, multiple disciplines were represented. In addition to Kaiser Permanente physicians, there were Kaiser nurses, nurse practitioners, registered dietitians, occupational therapists, social workers, and more. It is trends such as this that I have witnessed in just a couple of years that give me great cause for optimism.

Above: Dr. Lim with his parents

I believe you mentioned that your father was at the last Plantrician Conference. Tell me more about him and the rest of your family.

My father is a wonderful role model for me. He is a retired OB-GYN. When he talks to me about his career he always says nostalgically, “There was never a day I woke up and didn’t look forward to going to work.” And that’s a tough bar to meet. I think it was one of the reasons I kept jumping from career to career, continually seeking that same degree of career satisfaction and fulfillment. It felt really good to finally tell my dad that I too wake up excited to go to work each day. On a side note, it has been a lot of fun collaborating with my dad. In his retirement, and since becoming plant-based himself, he has started lecturing and giving presentations at venues all across San Diego, such as the Rotary Club, Town Council meetings, and vegetarian or vegan-related conferences. I even had him give a guest lecture at True North and Kaiser during his most recent visit to Santa Rosa, and he was a hit! Both groups demanded that he come back to give a repeat performance.

As for my mom, she is a gifted acupuncturist with a healing touch, and she has played a pivotal role in raising me to be the man I am today. I will be forever grateful to her because, had she not forwarded me the email announcing the job opportunity to work with Drs. McDougall and Goldhamer, I would likely not be having this conversation with you!

I have one older brother who is also a physician. He no longer practices clinical medicine and is now a very successful biotech entrepreneur with a focus on developing medications to treat cancer. He is a role model for me and is my closest friend; we were each other’s best man at our weddings.

Finally, my wife and two kids, ages eight and four, are the joys of my life. They have been very supportive of me and excited for me as I embark on this journey.

They have to love having you in one place as opposed to living all over the world?

They definitely love having me in one place and in one career!

So, is it fair to say you’ve found your “true north” at TrueNorth?

Yes! Often now when I give lectures at Kaiser, TrueNorth, or the McDougall program, I tell the audience that it’s the first time in my life that I can say that 50 years from now I truly believe that I will be devoting my life to this same cause. I could never say that before. I am just so grateful that I have found this calling in life.

I think it was the late great P.T. Barnum who said, “If you love what you’re doing, you’ll never work a day in your life.”

Absolutely. I can attest to that. Amen!

What do you do when you’re not working?

My favorite hobby is tennis. I’ve been playing since I was a kid. This last year I had my best season ever playing competitive USTA singles, and went undefeated during the regular season. I attribute my successful season in part due to my improved overall health since going plant-based.

My Christian faith is central to my life and everything I do. I thank God every day for his many blessings upon me and my family, and rely on His strength during challenging times. We attend weekly services at a vibrant local church and take part in a community group that meets regularly.

So, you’ve been a teacher, you’ve been in AmeriCorps, you’re a lawyer, you’re a doctor. Do you plan to write a book about all this?

No immediate plans, but perhaps someday. For now, I am content to simply devote myself to being a whole-food, plant-based doctor.

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By Mark Huberman

This interview originally appeared in the Winter 2016 issue of Health Science magazine, the member magazine of the National Health Association, of which interviewer Mark Huberman is the president.

Dr. Alan Goldhamer is the founder of TrueNorth Health Center in Santa Rosa, California, which provides medical and chiropractic services, psychotherapy and counseling, and massage and body work. TrueNorth has become one of the premier training facilities for doctors wishing to gain certification in the supervision of therapeutic fasting. The British Medical Journal recently published a report by TrueNorth on the successful treatment of lymphoma cancer with fasting and a vegan, SOS-free diet. Future research is planned through the Center’s nonprofit arm, the TrueNorth Health Foundation. After completing his chiropractic education at Western States Chiropractic College in Portland, Oregon, Dr. Goldhamer became licensed as an osteopathic physician in Australia. He is the author of The Health Promoting Cookbook and co-author of The Pleasure Trap: Mastering the Hidden Force That Undermines Health & Happiness.

MH: Nearly everyone that discovers the hygienic way of life has a story about their journey. What is yours? Was there a health crisis? Was there a particular book that inspired you?
AG: Originally, my interest in health was motivated by a desire to beat Dr. Doug Lisle (pictured left) in basketball. Back in elementary school he was not yet “Dr. Lisle,” he was just Doug. Unfortunately, he adopted the same health-promoting diet as I did, and my efforts failed. He still beats me handily in basketball—but it did get me interested in improved health.
 
When was your first NHA/ANHS conference and what brought you there?
It was 40 years ago. I had decided to pursue a career in health care and was interested in learning more about the use of fasting.

Was there a particular speaker or NHA leader who influenced you?
I was impressed with Dr. Alec Burton and his presentations on hygienic philosophy and fasting.

What role did the NHA play in your professional development?
My exposure to the thinking of the doctors was very helpful, and I’d say even critical, in convincing Dr. Burton to allow me to come to Australia to train.

What made you want to go to chiropractic college?
The late Dr. Gerald Benesh convinced me that it was necessary to gain training as a primary care doctor in order to have the basic skills needed to properly advise patients on how to manage their health.

Is that where you met your wife, Dr. Jennifer Marano?
Yes. Jennifer transferred to the school I was attending, and I fell in love with her shortly thereafter! (Pictured right)

You had the extraordinary fortune of studying under the late Dr. Gerald Benesh and then under Dr. Alec Burton. Is that right?
Yes, I was incredibly fortunate. Both men were highly instrumental in my education.

What did you learn from Dr. Benesh?
Dr. Benesh taught me that the greatest threat to my ability to practice was well-intentioned but ignorant doctors and government officials.

What about Dr. Burton?
Dr. Burton taught me how to get sick people well and help healthy people stay that way.

What led you and your wife to start your first fasting institute, the Center for Conservative Therapy, in Penngrove, California, and who were your first professional colleagues?
I had the intention of starting a healthcare facility from the time I was attending high school with Dr. Lisle. He joined Jennifer and me shortly after he completed his training as a psychologist. Our first intern, and eventually first staff doctor, was Alec Isabeau, who joined us almost 30 years ago.

When did you move to your current location in Santa Rosa, California, and how did that come about?
We searched nationwide for the best place to live and set up a facility. We took many things into account, such as weather, air quality, water access, safety, access for patients, cost of property, medical-legal considerations, and acceptance of alternative medicine. The best place in the country turned out to be Santa Rosa.

Why did you change the name to the “TrueNorth Health Center”?
One of our patients who owned a very successful marketing company donated his services to help us come up with the most appropriate name for our facility. There are many directions one can travel to try to attain health, but one direction is more effective and efficient than the others: True North. This is the direction we try to guide our patients.

You have gone through a number of expansions. Tell us about the latest?
We recently gained control of five buildings adjacent to our 26,000-square- foot main facility. This allowed us to transfer most of our medical and administrative offices to these new buildings and remodel the vacated spaces into patient rooms. This has dramatically increased our capacity to our present 59 private patient rooms. We also have a dozen of our staff living in an adjacent apartment building that we have taken over.

You have an extraordinary large staff, several of whom have been with you for a very long time. Tell me about some of them.

• Dr. Doug Lisle has been with us from day one and is the principal author of The Pleasure Trap. He is an outstanding clinical psychologist and dynamic speaker, and is currently working on a new book involving the critical issue of esteem.
• Dr. Alec Isabeau has been with us 30 years, and is our sports medicine expert and is an outstanding diagnostician.
• Dr. Erwin Linzner joined us over 15 years ago, and is an excellent chiropractor and experienced fasting supervisor.
• Dr. Gracie Yuen joined us many years ago after completing her training with Dr. David Scott. She provides chiropractic services and fasting supervision.
• Dr. Peter Sultana was a medical intern while attending Case Western Medical School and has been with us ever since. He has supervised more water-only fasts than any other medical doctor.
• Dr. Michael Klaper brought his 40 years of medical experience to TrueNorth about six years ago. He supervises our intern training program, provides outstanding diagnostic acumen, and also provides phone consultation services. He also lectures throughout the country.
• Dr. Anthony Lim is our newest medical doctor. He is a graduate of Harvard Law School as well as Stanford University. In addition to fasting supervision, Dr. Lim will be taking an active role in our expanding research program.
• Dr Csilla Veress is our first naturopathic physician. Dr. Veress also provides acupuncture services and nutritional medicine, including the use of amino acid therapy in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease and other neurotransmitter-related conditions.

Tell me about some of the other non-physician staff members and what they offer?

• Becka Kelley is TrueNorth’s assistant director. She is currently in a Ph.D. program for psychology, and is most interested in the issues of patient diet and lifestyle compliance and what we can do to support a patient’s ability to stay “True North.”
• Chef Ramses Bravo and his staff provide delicious, health-promoting food that is vegan and SOS-free (free from all added sugar, including refined carbohydrates, oil and salt) His staff, including Mauricio, Patty, Johnny, Griselda, and Kristina, keep our patients and staff well fed.
• David Goldman is a registered dietician and runs our fitness training program, utilizing our newly donated fitness center.
• Randy Frary is our new facilities manager, and with our housekeeping staff, Auggie, Maria, Armando, Lorena, and Sara, keeps the facility immaculate. They also take care of our patients’ personal laundry and provide all manner of assistance.
• Our hi-tech handyman Gar takes care of plumbing, electrical, and carpentry, as well as our network services and security cameras for the facility and our patients.
• Our administrative staff, Carolyn, Graceann, Kelly, Joan, Hilary, and Laura, handle phones, scheduling, billing, and concierge services.
• We also have a wonder group of instructors, including cooking teachers Katie Mae and Cathy Fisher (the copy editor of Health Science and TrueNorth’s electronic newsletter). Yoga and relaxation instructors are Alese, Mary, and Tam.
• We also have a research staff headed by our new director of research, Toshia Myers, Ph.D., who is helping us move our research agenda forward rapidly. We have also been assisted by our consultants, Jeff Novick, R.D. and Jim Lennon, who have been instrumental in the development of our soon-to-be-launched website, fasting.org.

What is the advantage to having medical doctors on staff?
Having the best and brightest medical doctors allows us to help patients with a wide variety of challenges more effectively and efficiently, and most of all, safely.

You and Dr. Lisle authored the groundbreaking book The Pleasure Trap. When did it come out and what is its premise?
It was published in 2006. The book offers insights into the factors that make us susceptible to dietary and lifestyle excesses, and presents ways to restore the biological processes designed by nature to keep us running at maximum efficiency and vitality. When people eat foods that contain chemicals, mainly sugar and oil, the brain becomes artificially stimulated by dopamine secretions, which leads to overeating, obesity, and the diseases of dietary excess. The “pleasure trap” is largely why people are fat and sick, and it is an addiction that is exceedingly difficult to escape. We use fasting, in part, to help patients escape the pleasure trap.

 

This article originally appeared in the Fall 2015 issue of Health Science magazine, the member magazine of the National Health Association.

Medicine wasn’t always what I wanted to do. Although, nurturing, healing, and creating health-promoting experiences are probably hard-wired into my genes.

My grandmother raised me at a young age (pictured at right), which was a great beginning for me as a child. We lived on a beautiful retreat in New York’s Catskill Mountains. My grandparents emigrated from Hungary and created a safe haven for other Hungarians who immigrated to America after the Hungarian revolution in the fifties and sixties. There was always plenty of room to run around and get exercise, clean mountain air, good farm-to-table food (although it was meat- and potato-heavy), and lots of love from family and friends. These are the foundational healing principles that have followed me throughout my life.

In middle and high school, my family would always meet around the dinner table, which was full of traditional Hungarian dishes, such as stuffed cabbage, chicken paprika, and hazelnut cake. My father impressed upon me and my brother the importance of family time, where we could all put our concerns on the table and talk openly. I was lucky that my father and mother loved us enough to break away from their busy lives to sit down with us and listen. I would actually want to come home from friends’ houses just so I could have dinner with my family; it had a sacred nature to it.

I played sports every season, and was always active with practice, games, school events, friends, and homework. Looking back now, all of these things were the right ingredients for my happiness. The life principles that were woven into my childhood, I later realized, were the very foundations of hygienic medicine: pure water, emotional poise, good homemade food, movement, sunshine, fresh air, and support and community.

Looking for a Career
College was where my life took some sharp turns and really made me tune into myself. I attended Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, where I was pre-med, having decided that becoming a doctor would be my way to really make an impact and change the world.

I learned a lot in college about health in terms of lifestyle choices. This was the first time I ate a variety of foods and meals that were not home-cooked or Hungarian. Consequentially, I gained over 15 pounds. I also started drinking alcohol for the first time in my life; it was the college culture. I became unhappy, overweight, and fatigued most days. I remember one day waking up and not being able to move my body because it felt so heavy. I thoughtI was paralyzed, and so I called my father.

My parents drove six hours that day to see me. I was prescribed antibiotics and was fine. I was likely suffering from a combination of alcohol poisoning, adrenal fatigue, and an unhealthy diet. I made the conscious decision going forward to get back into shape. I bought a bike and rode the two miles to and from my gym every day. While at the gym I started to read fitness, yoga, and health magazines, and I was fascinated by all the research coming out about exercise, food, and herbs. I was excited to know that someday I would be helping others achieve optimal health.

During my final year of undergraduate schooling, I completed an internship at a medical center in New Brunswick, and it was there that I realized that being a doctor wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. Patients didn’t leave feeling better most days, and nurses cared for the patients more than the doctors did.

Overall, the hospital was a very negative place. No one looked like they wanted to be there. Of course no one wants to be sick, so the patients didn’t want to be there; but there was an overall negativity to their so called healing. Additionally, the staff didn’t look pleased or even remotely satisfied with their professions. I didn’t expect people to be smiling all day in a hospital, but there is a sense you get around people when they are actually doing what they want to do and are happy in their work, and that wasn’t what I found there. I wanted to practice a different kind of healing; the “feel good at the end of the day” kind that actually promoted good health. My internship was a wake-up call, which resulted in me putting my medical path on hold to figure out if I was more suited to another career.

Taking a Detour
One day in the mailroom at college I saw an advisement for “Australearn,” a program that allowed students to travel to Australia for a year and learn a trade. Since I was at a crossroads, about to graduate with my B.A., and with no career plans to speak of, I decided to go to Australia. I took a marketing and advertising internship at an organization called Surf Life Savings. This was probably the best year of my life. The work was exciting because it was new, and I was maintaining my daily health rituals, including walking and exercising, getting fresh air, travelling, experiencing a new culture, meeting good people, and eating good food that was mostly plant-based.

When I returned to the U.S., I got a job working in a marketing and advertising firm in Manhattan. Even though I was health-minded I still found it a challenge to practice a consistently healthy lifestyle. I knew what health looked like for me: meditation, yoga, Pilates, eating good food, not drinking alcohol, and trying to maintain a balance between work and relationships. I tried to follow the “healthy yellow brick road” but ended up detouring constantly. In that time, however, I did become a certified Pilates mat instructor, a holistic health counselor, I studied various nutritional modalities at the Institute for Integrative nutrition, and I also became a self-proclaimed budding herbalist.

Over the course of eight years, I worked at three different advertising/marketing agencies, and in between each job, I remember thinking, “What do I really want to do with my life?” I eventually found myself lost and unhappy with my career and life. I remember coming back home after visiting a friend in Spain, and I cried the entire way because I was so miserable; I didn’t want to go back to my life. My inner compass knew that as much as I loved Manhattan, I would have to leave, and probably not come back. So that is what I did—I packed up my life and headed upstate to my parents’ house to regroup. There I was able to go for walks in nature every day, and I started teaching Pilates at a local gym. But I still connected with my earlier desires to change the world. I wanted to heal the earth and help people live happy, conscious, and meaningful lives. So, I began my search once again.

Finding What I Wanted
I thought that I had gone astray by doing pre-med in college and not following my interest in truly helping others, and the world. After some online searching one day, I found Bastyr University, a naturopathic medical school in Washington state. As I read more about the school, naturopathic medicine, and the philosophies and principles that governed medicine, I realized that it was everything I wanted. I remember being so excited that I had found it—the thing I was supposed to do for the rest of my life!

I went on to graduate from Bastyr University with my Doctorate in Naturopathic Medicine. But for me, it didn’t stop there. During my training I decided to combine (with my doctorate) a master’s degree in oriental medicine and acupuncture. I loved the philosophy and the commonsense brilliance of oriental medicine, and I felt that it would be the right combination for my practice.

During this time I also became interested in oncology. I worked for a few years at BIORC (Bastyr Integrative Oncology Research Center). It was a fantastic experience. I worked with Dr. Leanna Standish, a leading researcher and clinician in naturopathic oncology. In addition to the clinical rotations I did (at Bastyr health clinic and associated hospitals and health clinics), I was able to mentor with some amazing naturopathic physicians in their private clinics. I found that the people I was drawn to all had a beautiful ability to be present with their patients and to use the modalities of our medicine while truly living up to the health-promoting principles of naturopathic philosophies. These doctors worked with their hands, met the patients where they were in their lives, and guided them toward healthier lifestyles while intelligently bringing in supplements, herbs, and/or pharmaceuticals when needed.

TrueNorth
I first heard about TrueNorth Health Center when Dr. Alan Goldhamer came and spoke at our school about water fasting in one of our therapeutics classes. I remember thinking that fasting made so much sense, and I questioned why I had never done it. I emailed Dr. Goldhamer asking if I could do an internship, but unfortunately they were only available for four-month-long stays, and due to my triple track at school (ND, acupuncture and Chinese herbs) I didn’t have the month to take off.

When my residency training began, I had my heart set on doing more cancer care and was interviewing at Cancer Treatment Centers of America on the east coast. I was also following my husband as he had a prospective job in New York. “Serendipitous” is the word I would use for my landing at TrueNorth. My husband’s opportunity in New York didn’t come to fruition, and instead he ended up taking a job in Calistoga, California. Around the same time my husband took his new job, the residency director said that the residency at TrueNorth had opened up again. TrueNorth was only a 30-minute drive from Calistoga, so I came down and interviewed, got the residency, and here I am one year later.

In my practice at TrueNorth Health Center, I help patients every single day achieve optimal health. I have integrated the principals that I learned at Bastyr into my work; they are the “bricks” that create a solid foundation for an overall healthful life; without them the tools and modalities that I learned in medical school could not stand alone.

Today, the six principles that steer my work with my patients are: (1) do no harm, (2) use the healing power of nature, (3) identify and treat the cause, (4) treat the whole person, (5) teach the principles of healthy living, and (6) focus on prevention. This provides a framework for my interactions with my patients. This brings me to the other difference between naturopathic and allopathic medicine: In naturopathic medicine there are so many healing modalities beyond just pharmacology, including botanical medicine, nutrition, hydrotherapy, manipulation, homeopathy, cranial sacral therapy, and counseling.

In my residency position at TrueNorth Health, I perform a variety of functions where I am learning about health promotion as well as how to run a business. I coordinate and organize the lab draws that are essential to the care and safety of our patients. I also train, mentor and organize the medical internship program, which brings in students and professionals from all medical professions to learn about water fasting as a healing modality. I also work with patients one-on-one in two ways: I guide and manage patients through their cleansing/fasting experiences, and am also building an out-patient practice so that I may see more people from the community (who may not be staying at TrueNorth). Second, as part of the medical supervision offered at TrueNorth, we see patients twice a day to monitor their progress. I am a part of the in-patient rounds team as well. All of this varied work gives me wider exposure to different types of people and their conditions.

I find myself smiling from ear to ear most days because I have been fortunate enough to have found TrueNorth Health. When I first arrived, I commented to Dr. Goldhamer that the center was actually a naturopathic clinic at its heart. Each day presents me with new challenges, but I am doing the kind of work and healing that drew me to naturopathic medicine. I love my job, and I love my patients. I feel this with everyone who comes to TrueNorth; we are, as a whole, making a big impact on the health of our community and the world.

It’s so gratifying to know that at the end of the day people are getting better and feeling healthier by adopting foundational health practices, which are at the heart and soul of naturopathic medical teachings. There is no better feeling than to have someone say at the end of their stay, “Doc, you saved my life.” Although, based on personal experience, it’s even better to see them three months later with a huge smile on their face, saying, “I’m still feeling great and still going strong!”

 

By Mark Huberman

This interview originally appeared in the Spring 2015 issue of Health Science magazine, the member magazine of the National Health Association, of which interviewer Mark Huberman is the president.

Dr. Erwin Linzner completed his undergraduate training at the California State University, Los Angeles. He then went on to graduate Magna Cum Laude and as class valedictorian from Western States Chiropractic College. Dr. Linzner worked as an accountant and computer programmer prior to becoming a doctor. In 1994 he became affiliated with the TrueNorth Health Center. Dr. Linzner understands the importance of addressing the entire individual, physical as well as emotional, in guiding his patients in their process of healing. He incorporates soft tissue manipulation in the treatment of myofascial and connective tissue disorders, and spends the time to correct joint problems in the extremities as well as the spine.

MH: When you were first introduced as a new hygienic physician to the readers of Health Science magazine way back in January of 1997, I recall that your door to Natural Hygiene came from reading Fit for Life. What was it about that book that you found thought-provoking?
EL: It was an accumulation of things. I’ve learned over the years that we always reject information at first, even if it’s true, and I did this in my twenties. I had a good friend who was eating plant-based; I’m pretty sure he was vegan. And he would make salads and baked potatoes for me when I’d visit him. Then I would go to McDonald’s afterwards. But then in my thirties, I guess I was about 34, I read the book Fit for Life, and it really made sense to me that we are designed to have an optimum diet, and if you deviate too much then things aren’t going to work as well. And that made sense to me, just like nobody puts sugar and dirt into their gas tanks; we shouldn’t be doing that either with our food. One day I said, “Okay, I’ll give this a trial for a full week,” and luckily for me I woke up after three days of plant-based eating and my energy just bounded; it was just phenomenal.

Were you having any health problems at the time?
Yes. I never had energy. I’d get up at 8AM but I didn’t feel like I was actually moving until about 11AM. And I had frequent cold, and would be out of work for two or three days. I knew something wasn’t right.

One of the great things for the NHA was that Fit for Life and its authors, Harvey and Marilyn Diamond, didn’t have an organization of their own, and so they referred people who wanted to gain more information about the program to us. Is that how you were introduced to the NHA?
That was it. I started getting literature from the NHA, about once a month, and then one day I got a flier that Dr. Alan Goldhamer was giving a talk in Santa Monica, and I became interested. Also on the program were Dr. Jennifer Marano and Dr. Alan Immerman. Dr. Goldhamer spoke about water fasting and getting people well with fasting and healthy eating. It made so much sense to me and got me excited about wanting to make a difference in people’s lives; so I decided to follow in Dr. Goldhamer’s footsteps and go to Western States Chiropractic College.

Were there there other books that you read that helped frame your thinking?
I, of course, read almost everything from Dr. Herbert Shelton, and I was particularly inspired by his book, Fasting Can Save Your Life.

After reading the book, did you undertake a fast yourself to fully understand the experience?
At the time, my wife needed it more than I did. So I thought I’d let her be the guinea pig. So I sent her up to Dr. Goldhamer.

What a generous husband!
Well (chuckle), she had a history of smoking and was a little overweight, so I said why don’t we send you up there to clean out a bit. She was open to it, and did quite a long fast of over 20 days at Dr. Goldhamer’s first facility in Penngrove, California, called the Center for Conservative Therapy.

Was that eye-opening for her?
Oh, yes! It was eye-opening for us both. She lost weight and really looked radiant. It was just amazing. After that I did a fast as well, but only for about five days. (Dr. Linzner and Carolyn pictured at right.)

Do you remember the first NHA conference you attended?
I think it was Georgetown University back in 1994 right after I joined Alan.

Were there other hygienic physicians that you met who were influential in your thinking?
Two that impressed me a lot were Dr. Alec Burton and Dr. Keki Sidhwa. Believe it or not, on my bus ride from the airport I found myself sitting next to Dr. Sidhwa. It proved a wonderful opportunity to begin picking his brain.

How did you wind up working at TrueNorth?
After doing my fast at TrueNorth, I was really impressed with the work that Dr. Goldhamer was doing, so I said to him, “I went to your talk in Santa Monica last year, and it really motivated me to do this kind of work; so I am going to go to Chiropractic College to involve myself in the same kind of work.” To my surprise Alan said, “Great! As soon as you graduate, give me a call.” 

And you did?
Indeed I did. Of course I checked with him as things went along to make sure he was serious about it and that he would still bring me on when I graduated. And he said, “Yeah, yeah, keep working. We’re waiting for you.” Immediately after graduating, he gave me the opportunity to do an internship, and when that was completed he made me part of the staff. It was a great experience.

I know that Dr. Goldhamer still offers internship opportunities to young physicians. Why is it important to do an internship in fasting supervision?
It’s the best, and probably only, way for doctors to actually learn what works and what doesn’t. And it’s pretty phenomenal to actually see people get well from diet changes and fasting. I’ve seen some pretty miraculous recoveries.

Are there any that really stand out in your mind?
There have been many. In my first year at TrueNorth I helped care for a gentleman in his forties who was a drug addict, obese, and in congestive heart failure. When he was dropped off at the center, he was huffing and puffing just trying to get to the door. And I remember thinking, “Oh boy, this isn’t good. We are actually going to fast this guy?” I think he was referred by a medical doctor in Santa Rosa who told him that this was his last chance to get healthy. And that if we couldn’t help him, there probably wasn’t anything that could be done for him. Because of his situation, he was prepared to do whatever we asked of him. I don’t recall how long we fed him before we started fasting him, but we fasted him about 34 days. Amazingly, after breaking his fast, this guy who couldn’t walk from his car to TrueNorth’s front door ended up walking up a significant hill nearby! He then started walking 10 miles a day and truly started a new life. It was really amazing to see.

During my recent interview with Dr. Frank Sabatino, he felt there was a great place for fasting and a hygienic lifestyle in the true recovery from addiction. Do you agree?
Yes, I do. However, people recovering from addiction are often tougher to manage. But if they’re motivated and are willing to do the hard work, they’re going to get better quicker.

Over your past 18 years at True North, are there other conditions that you’ve seen respond particularly well to fasting?
I remember a young woman, maybe in her late twenties, with severe rheumatoid arthritis. She could not reach her head to do her hair. She fasted close to three weeks and had a great result. I remember how excited she was when she was able to do her own hair again.

What do you think the power of fasting is?
Fasting does a lot of things, but the one big thing it does is rejuvenate the body. During a fast you are breaking down old tissue and diseased cells that actually get rebuilt with new material. You get enzymatic induction, and you clean out your arteries. Excess fluid and salt leave your system. And your immune system strengthens; not necessarily during the fast but certainly afterwards.

Do you think that everybody needs to fast, or that everyone would benefit from fasting on some level?
Yes, I think everyone could benefit from periodic fasting. Even if you eat a really healthy diet, I think every four to five years it’s a good idea to undertake a fast to cleanse the palate, detox, and give your body a rest from digestion in a way that will allow the body to heal.

Is there a danger for people fasting themselves, and is there a limit to how many days people can go without supervision?
Fasting of any significant duration should be done under supervision by a medical professional. This is particularly the case for people on medications, because dramatic things can happen during the fasting state. However, if you are not on medication, a fast of two or three days is generally safe.

Can people get off their medication following a period of fasting and diet modification?
Absolutely! I have probably seen a thousand patients with hypertension who had normal or near normal blood pressure after fasting and no longer needed medication. I can count the number of failures on one hand. That’s pretty phenomenal. And even if they don’t get full resolution, they still see substantial improvement. The same is true for many people suffering from diabetes who were on medications.

How do you motivate people to adhere to the health program after a fast, and not slip back to hold habits and temptations once they return to their homes and jobs?
For most people it’s a process. The majority of people don’t make changes overnight. What I see is that people get better each time they come in. So they may come once a year or maybe even twice a year. The first time they give up the cigarettes and the second time they give up the beer and they eat more vegetables. For others, they just get it and they do the right things for a while. However, stresses get in the way when loved ones die and people lose jobs, for example. After those types of emotionally charged events, people can fall back into old habits of trying to get pain relief by eating crappy food.

Is that what Drs. Goldhamer and Lisle call the “Pleasure Trap”?
Yes. You feel a little better because you have some endorphin releases from the fatty foods you’re eating. But this is very short-term. The damage, however, will last for days, and if you do that for any period of time, health problems start up again.

My late father used to say that if you went to a hygienic facility or you came to an NHA conference, it would “recharge your battery.” Do you also find that to be the case at TrueNorth?
Yes—not only physically but mentally. I think one of the most important things we offer is the daily lectures. We offer people two a day, affording them a wonderful opportunity to understand the things we recommend them to do. People often deceive themselves into believing that they are eating healthy but they actually are not. I had a new patient today who started just that way. He said, “I eat pretty healthy.” But he was on hypertensive meds and he was a diabetic on medication. I told him gently, “Well, you know, the plant-based way is much better than what you’re describing.” I added, “If you were actually eating healthy you wouldn’t be taking those medications.” That seemed to get his attention, and I was able to convince him to make dietary changes during his first visit.

People must find it very liberating to get off of their medications.
Absolutely! You know, most people know that their medications are doing them damage. They don’t feel well when they take them, since there are almost always toxic side-effects. So they know that they’d rather not be on medication; but it’s still so hard for people to make the necessary changes.

Is that because taking drugs is so easy and offers a short-term suppression of their symptoms?
That’s right. I try to get people to realize that health is not free. You have to do a lot of work to actually be healthy. Health is not a given, and if you’re not willing to pay the price of the hard work, you’re going to be paying a different price, such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, stroke, dementia, and/or a long list of very unpleasant conditions that western populations face. So which price do you want to pay? We hope that people choose the price of short-term deprivation where you’ll go through a withdrawal period while not engaging in your usual short-term pleasure seeking activities. And that process may take two or three months. But if you’re not willing to pay that price, you’re going to be paying a much bigger price: poor health.

I think when I interviewed Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, he said it was his belief that nearly all of the degenerative diseases you were just describing actually need not exist. Do you agree with him?
Oh, absolutely. It is so true. Obviously some of the cancers are not clear, and even healthy people get ill, but the vast majority would not exist if people followed our whole-foods, plant-based lifestyle. And then when people did have heart attacks, we’d be writing them up in the health journals because they’d be so rare!

Does everyone come to TrueNorth to fast or can they just come to eat and learn?
You can do both. Dr. Goldhamer has hired a wonderful chef, and his staff does such a great job of presenting healthy foods. We actually get many people that come just to eat and exercise who can’t fast due to their myriad of health conditions. We also have lots of people that come in just to eat or maybe to go on a modified juice fast because they’re still on some medication. (Pictured at right: Dr. Linzner at TrueNorth in Penngrove in 1996)

How does juice fasting differ from water fasting?
Both juice fasting and water fasting use the body’s ability to burn fat and accelerate the detox process. Water fasting, however, is a much faster process of getting people healthier. This may mean, however, that there are more symptoms, such nausea, vomiting, back pain, headaches, itching, etc. So, people who don’t want to go through the rigors of water fasting can choose to do juice fasting, which is typically less symptomatic. Also, for some patients who are on medications and/or where the doctor feels that water fasting is inappropriate, juice fasting can be a safer alternative.

How has the center changed from those early days when it was called the Center for Conservative Therapy (located in Penngrove) to TrueNorth Health Center (located in Santa Rosa)?
One of the biggest things is that we’ve brought on medical doctors. When I first came on staff, we had Dr. Ron Cridland, but he left shortly thereafter, and for a while we didn’t have any medical doctors. Today we are fortunate to have several serving the facility, and that is very helpful because we get patients with more significant health problems than we used to; and our medical doctors also have the ability to manage patients’ medications and complex conditions. We get sicker people nowadays, but often even they can get off of most of their medications despite not being able to fast.

When patients stay at TrueNorth, do you collaborate with the other physicians there, concerning their care?
We have weekly meetings, and the doctors discuss each patient’s case to see what we can do better.

Do you have a specific role at TrueNorth Health, or are you just one of the staff physicians that do everything?
I have two roles. I do the morning rounds for fasting supervision to make sure everyone is having a safe fasting experience. I also do chiropractic treatments for both our residential participants and local patients for a variety of musculoskeletal conditions.

What impact do you think documentaries like Forks Over Knives have had on this country’s health consciousness?
A lot. I’ve been on a plant-based diet for 28 years now, but when I first went vegan my family went ballistic. I remember one of my cousins saying, “You’re crazy. You’re going to get sick and die; you’re going to have protein deficiencies.” I just looked at him and chuckled. But you know, that was the mindset back then, not just by family and friends, but also the medical society, the media, and the American Dietetic Association. That’s changed a lot, and much of the credit goes to that great film and the wonderful work of the physicians profiled in it. Today, when you talk to people about getting on a plant-based diet, they usually have heard of it and more often than not even respect it.

Do you still have to defend such questions as, “Where do you get your protein?” and “Why don’t you drink milk?”
Yes, but not as often as 25 years ago. But many people still believe that protein only comes from meat and that cow’s milk is necessary for strong bones.

What do you think of the “super food” emphasis being given to greens like kale, spinach, and bok choy? Is this the wrong way to think about simply good eating?
Not at all. Dr. Joel Fuhrman talks a lot about micro-nutrient density, and he is right on. These green leafy vegetables are some the most important foods to eat because they are very high in vitamins and minerals, as well as nutrients we probably haven’t even discovered yet. So it’s very important to eat your greens.

Isn’t one of the great benefits of following a hygienic, plant-based, minimally processed diet is that you don’t have to worry about how much protein, vitamins, and minerals you are taking in?
Yes, it’s such a relief. I know if I just stick to eating whole foods that are plant-based, with maybe a little exception of B12 and vitamin D, I really don’t need to worry about anything else.

Are you optimistic that we are becoming more health conscious in America?
Oh, definitely. As I mentioned earlier, there’s been a major shift in awareness, and even fasting seems to be catching on. We’re so busy here at TrueNorth because so many people are now interested in fasting. Recently, a major national magazine had an article detailing the experience of one of their writers who came and had a wonderful experience fasting with us. That article generated quite a bit of interest and business. So we’re getting a lot of exposure, even in the mainstream media, about fasting.

Are you also getting a lot of interest from young physicians wanting to learn about fasting and your health program?
Yes we are. We’re getting medical doctors, naturopaths, and chiropractors who are coming here to learn what we do, and it’s affecting how they think about health. And that’s really how the change is going to happen in the future; it isn’t what they’re going to be teaching in medical school. What medical schools teach will only change after enough people say it’s time to change.

So tell me about the Linzner Family?
My wife Carolyn and I have an adopted son who is 32 and he’s got three kids. Carolyn is the office manager at TrueNorth.

And has she stayed disciplined with the lifestyle as well?
Pretty much. She had a little more trouble a few years ago, but she’s been very good now for a couple of years, and she has lost a lot of weight. Everyone has to make those decisions for themselves; nobody can make them for you.

What do the Linzners do for recreation when they are not admitting or caring for patients at TrueNorth?
We do some hiking and occasionally go dancing, but my favorite thing to do is play Bridge.

Bridge!!? That doesn’t sound very vigorous.
It’s not, but its very competitive, and it exercises your mind.

It’s been great talking to you doc and catching up with you after all these years.
Good to talk to you, Mark!

By Mark Huberman

This interview originally appeared in the Winter 2015 issue of Health Science magazine, the member magazine of the National Health Association, of which interviewer Mark Huberman is the president.

Peter Sultana, M.D. is a board-certified family physician in Santa Rosa, CA. His training includes a bachelor’s degree in Physics and Art History from Fordham University, a doctorate of Medicine from Case Western Reserve University, a diploma of specialization in Family Medicine from the University of Missouri, a certificate in Medical Aspects of Natural Family Planning from Creighton University, and a certificate in the Supervision of Therapeutic Fasting from the IAHP. He has worked in a broad spectrum of various clinical and research settings over the years, and currently runs a small family practice, and serves as a medical consultant to the participants of TrueNorth Health Center.

MH: You are a rare breed within the modern-day Natural Hygiene movement since, to my knowledge, it has only attracted a handful of medical doctors: Ron Cridland, Joel Fuhrman, Michael Klaper and, most recently, Stephan Esser. How did you as a physician arrive at this esteemed plateau?
PS: I think the concept of Natural Hygiene has probably been with me my whole life, but I wasn’t aware of it as a system. I think it was just the idea of living in harmony with nature that I grew up with. So the seeds were already there by the time I discovered Natural Hygiene in my twenties.

I was trying to eat a healthy diet and people noticed it. One day, one of my workmates said, “You know, you would really fit in well with this group of health-minded people that I know who meet once a month.” I decided to check it out, and I became part of a small group of about six people who were studying Natural Hygiene. I thought, “Yeah, this is for me.” One thing led to another, and I ended up going to NHA (National Health Association) conferences and meeting different people who worked in this field. I think the very first conference I attended was in 1989 in Miami Beach, Florida.

Were your parents vegetarians or at least health inclined?
My parents were health inclined but not vegetarian. As I grew up, I started asking questions like, “Which of these foods is healthier?” and noticed that the answers pointed toward more vegetables and less meat. Dairy and eggs were still the darlings of nutrition at the time, so it took me longer to see them for what they were.

A lot of people come to this way of living because of a health crisis. Was that the case with you?
No, however, I did notice changes as my diet got cleaner, and I definitely felt better internally. I recall having some acne on my back that dramatically cleared up when I changed how I ate. I think this occurred as a result of giving up dairy foods, which was probably one of the last things I did.

Was there one book or one hygienic physician in particular that inspired you?
Before I started going to NHA conferences, I tried to follow the advice from the people in my local hometown Natural Hygiene group, but none of them were health professionals. They had strong opinions and lots of advice, but in retrospect they had little experience and no accountability. I know they were well intentioned, but following their advice I ended up eating far too much raw food and found myself eventually declining in health.

Now that I think about it, in answer to your earlier question, I actually did have a health crisis. The irony is that contrary to the typical path you just alluded to, Natural Hygiene was actually causing my health crisis, not solving it. So I started going to NHA conferences and met more responsible people, and learned that there was a balance you had to hit between raw and cooked food. I talked to most of the doctors individually, and they gave excellent advice, particularly Dr. Ralph Cinque, whose compassion and earnestness touched me as he coached me out of the crisis. What I learned from this is that broad principles are a great starting point, but there are many factors that go into tailoring them to each individual. At this point, I began to appreciate the value of licensed health-care professionals in Natural Hygiene.

You hold a dual degree in Art History and Physics from Fordham University. That sounds like a long way from a career in medicine. Are you actually an artist?
I love art and have some talent, but few people would ever accuse me of being an artist. Growing up, I never aspired to being a doctor. My interests were in art and drama, as well as goodness, truth, beauty and God. So in college I started off by majoring in Art History. It was my way of getting a big picture of art in the world. Eventually, around sophomore year, the question came up, “Well, what are you going to do with this?” I certainly wasn’t a good enough artist nor an actor to even think about making a living with those. But I was told that architects got paid, so I started looking into that.

I needed to take some science classes, particularly physics, which I had never taken before. So I took the introductory physics class and ended up loving it. I was fascinated by the universal language and beautiful balance and symmetry of the natural world. Halfway through the semester, the chairman of the department invited me into his office and said, “You are doing extremely well with this; you would make a good physics major.” My first response was, “No thanks; I already have a major,” but later I thought about what he said and found that if I worked at it I could add a second major without giving up the first, and still graduate on time. I never really developed a strong passion for architecture, so I just finished college with that dual degree and then took a break.

That summer, I moved back home to Cleveland and found a summer job at the Cleveland Health Education Museum. It was there that I started learning more about human biology. I worked on exhibits and taught guests about them. At the end of the summer, the job was over and I needed to find another one. Just down the road, the Cleveland VA Hospital had just posted an opening for a technician. I answered it and found myself in a research project focused on using electrical impulses controlled by computer technology to restore walking in paralyzed people (see photo at right). It was a lot of fun working with this multinational, multidisciplinary group of students, surgeons, Ph.D.s, and research subjects. The project had a great goal, but after a couple of years I found myself more interested in the lives of the human research subjects I worked with. I soon began to realize that the subjects’ mobility issues were often the least of their problems, and I was drawn into taking a more holistic view in helping them. That experience, combined with several of other storyline threads, ultimately came together at the age of 25 when I found myself being called to work as a doctor.

Tell me about attending Case Western Reserve Medical School.
It was wonderful, mostly. After college I chose to live in a cultural hub of Cleveland called University Circle, a one-square-mile neighborhood of major museums, colleges, music schools, and more. The thing that drew me there initially was the famous Cleveland Art Museum, the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Cleveland Institute of Art. So I was surrounded by all kinds of brilliant and broad-minded influences. I eventually came to know students and faculty at Case Western Reserve Medical School, and it started to grow on me; so it was an easy first choice for medical school. Once I was in the school, I found many of my classmates quite receptive to my perspectives on natural health. So, overall, it was a very good environment to learn and train. The hardest part was sleep deprivation. I think it took me seven years to recover from that.

Very few physicians are medical doctors in the Natural Hygiene movement; most of them have been chiropractors. I’m told that one of the reasons is the fear of the medical indoctrination in drugs and cures. Chiropractic takes a more holistic approach to health and recovery. Was this a challenge for you in becoming an M.D.?
Yes, some of it was. However, I started medical school with the firm conviction of health through natural healing, and I think that helped me absorb the information from a good perspective. In the first year you’re mainly studying basic anatomy, physiology, and how the body works, and there was little conflict with that. In the second year, you start learning more about diseases where things go wrong, and there wasn’t much conflict there either. However, in the third year, we started to bring in medicines, and I could see that some of the thinking was starting to go in the wrong direction.

I was surprised to find that a lot of our teachers were extremely biased. The only reason many were teaching there was not because they were good teachers, but because they had research grants. These grants came from pharmaceutical companies, and the more they were able to bring in that money, the more they were there teaching. It was hard being taught by people whose goal was to develop a product; often, that was a conflict of interest.

But at the same time I also felt like the world was going through a change. There was a growing specialty called “Family Medicine,” and the department was filled with holistic-minded people. There were a lot of medical students that shared my interest and focus on health. We would go out together to see talks by Drs. Dean Ornish and Neal Barnard. There were student groups that were interested in alternative medicine. I was actually asked to lead the AMA “Student Group on Humanistic Medicine” (an odd name, but that’s another conversation). I accepted, and the first thing I did was to invite Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn from the Cleveland Clinic to give us a talk. My fellow students were very receptive to his message, which is still consistent with the message he is giving today. He was just as intense and captivating then as he is now. Incidentally, I also invited Dr. D.J. Scott to speak, but he declined because he, and maybe wisely so, did not feel that it was his role to teach convictions. He was happy to teach people who wanted to follow natural living, but he wasn’t going to try to convert people.

Where did you do your residency after graduation?
I did my residency training in Missouri. It was sort of on-the-job training. As a resident you are a licensed doctor and you are in charge of people’s medical care. My specialty was in Family Medicine, so my residency trained me for a broad range of things. It was surgery, medicine, geriatrics, intensive care, and neonatal units: the whole range of life and the whole range of diseases (see photo at right). In addition, I had my own practice in the outpatient clinics. At the end of my residency, we moved east to be closer to family. However, finding people to work with who could reinforce a truly health-promoting practice was challenging, so I gravitated more toward the West Coast.

Speaking of similar mindsets, how did you find your way to TrueNorth Health?
I had always been aware of Dr. Alan Goldhamer and Dr. Jennifer Marano’s project that has come to be known as TrueNorth. I was impressed with its stable and steady growth. When I graduated they invited me to do an internship with them. When I arrived, we all hit it off really well, and I was warmly welcomed by not only them, but also Drs. Isabeau, Linzner, Dina, Anderson and Kim. It was a great resonating experience to have so many people working together, teaching the same message, and reinforcing each other. I think we each became more effective in what we did that way.

On the TrueNorth website it states that you have an interest in natural approaches to fertility. Have you found that couples who have adopted the hygienic lifestyle have better success with this very challenging area?
Thank you for appreciating how challenging and heart-wrenching that can be. It is true that many families we have worked with have called us back to give us good news on achieving pregnancy; and many women have reported the resolution or improvement of problems and pains in their reproductive organs. But there are so many factors involved in healthy fertility that we can’t say in isolation what made the difference. The field of Natural Family Planning studies the natural processes of fertility, and conservatively uses technology in a way that cooperates with those processes. I try to combine teaching a hygienic lifestyle with natural procreative technologies to get the best outcomes.

I think it was Dr. Joel Fuhrman who once said that it was important to distinguish between historical hygiene and hysterical hygiene, and give some traditional hygienic thinking more thoughtful and sober analysis. I would like to ask your view on some of these areas. The first and perhaps oldest notion is that “all drugs are poisons” and, therefore, you want to avoid them like the proverbial plague. As a medical doctor you have these tools at your disposal, but is there a place for them?
I do believe all drugs are poisons, but you’re right that there is a role for them. Sometimes taking a toxic medication is less damaging than doing nothing. There is no wonder drug without side-effects; you have to weigh the risks and benefits in each situation. Lots of people have high blood pressure, but each person may have a different problem causing it. Amazingly, with the aggressive, holistic changes we promote, most of the time the blood pressure improves no matter what the cause was.

Sometimes, however, despite these changes, blood pressure remains too high to be safe, and the patient bears the risk of blowing a blood vessel in their brain and ending up with a stroke. Often they would then be better off taking a toxic medication than having a stroke. Keep in mind that the body, besides wanting to be healthy, is very aware of the reality that there are toxic things in the environment. The body is built to handle toxins. So if you put a toxic medicine in, for the most part (if you’re doing it intelligently), it can clear away a lot of the toxicity and you can live with it in a way that is safer than if you had left it alone and risked having a stroke.

Above: Dr. Sultana in the kitchen of TrueNorth Health Center when it was located in Penngrove, CA.

Another issue is the advocacy or efficacy of raw foods, and the old hygienic notion that “cooked foods are dead foods” and that the pristine diet is a raw one. You mentioned earlier that in the early stages of your journey to Natural Hygiene you focused too much on raw foods. What is your perspective on the raw food diet?
The raw food diet was probably the thing that first drew me to the Natural Hygiene community. The idea of just picking up food in its natural state and eating it is very attractive. In reality it doesn’t really work well for most people because they don’t have the capacity to digest and be satiated on food that is 100% raw. You can make the food more bioavailable by conservatively cooking it, mainly steaming or baking. But the notion that “cooked food is dead food” is really missing the forest for the trees. Is food supposed to be “alive” when you eat it? What does that mean? If that refers to enzymes that are destroyed by cooking, keep in mind that the bulk of our digestion is done by our own internal enzymes. If you try to take in food that you cannot digest with the hope that it is carrying enzymes that will do it for you, you are going to be very disappointed. Very few nutrients are destroyed through cooking our food relative to the hundreds of good nutrients that are absorbed and active.

So does conservative cooking preserve or destroy the enzymes?
Mostly it preserves the nutrients, some are destroyed, some only become bioavailable by cooking, and most are retained. You can conclude by physical examination and blood tests just how much nutrients a person is getting. Someone on a mix of raw and cooked whole foods can actually have a much better nutrient profile than someone on a purely raw diet. Cooking can destroy some nutrients and deliver other nutrients. Most people need both to thrive.

A powerful notion among hygienic physicians is that the body has a pretty remarkable ability to cleanse, repair and restore itself? Is that the case?
The body does indeed have a remarkable ability to do so. However, I am concerned that in our 21st century we are hitting the limit on that. I do not think the body is equipped to keep up with the amount of chemicals and toxic exposures that it’s being hit with these days. The early hygienists were right; the body was able to recover and handle toxicities if they were reasonably managed. Now we are living in a soup of toxic pollution, and the body doesn’t keep up as well. Dr. William Esser, one of the early hygienists, had one of the longest careers in supervising people through healthy transformations and fasting. He had a huge amount of wisdom built up over the years, and one of the observations that he made toward the end of his career was that people weren’t getting as well with fasting. He was not seeing as many of the dramatic recoveries that he used to back when he first started doing this. He recognized, wisely so, that the world had changed and the old principles written back then aren’t so simple anymore. We can no longer think that all you have to do is eat some healthy food and do a little fasting, and you will recover. There is a lot of damage that has been done, and the body is at the edges of its ability to try to undo it. Yes, people still get amazing improvements, but there are some injuries that cannot be undone. This is why our message of prevention is so important.

Above: Dr. Sultana in 2014, at far left, with his fellow TrueNorth clinicians in Santa Rosa, CA.

What conditions do you see that still respond well to fasting and a hygienic diet?
Organ damage can be difficult. For example, if the kidney, which is a major detoxifying organ, has been damaged, there is little room for improvement. It can reach a level of tissue damage and scarring that is final. At that point, the high blood pressure is not going to turn around. But in general, the body’s organ systems are very resilient. If you remove the toxins, the body recovers and the symptoms decrease: the blood pressure goes down, the sinuses clear out, the aches and pains clear up, and there is an overall rejuvenation that occurs. As for particular conditions, hypertension and diabetes are two of the easier, measurable things we see that turn around. While fibromyalgia is not as measurable, the subjective reports of healing are very exciting.

Do most people fast who come to TrueNorth?
I think maybe 50% to 60% do a fast. More than fasting, TrueNorth is an environment to take time out of life to cleanse, get empowered, and then resume life with a touched-up or, in some cases, much overhauled daily routine, particularly a food routine. Fasting may not be part of a stay at TrueNorth, but everyone cleanses. It turns out that many people think they are living a healthy, whole-food, plant-based diet when in fact they are not. When they come here, they find the diet is much more cleansing that they were even aware of, and it takes their health up a level.

Isn’t it fascinating that this is essentially the kind of superior nutrition that Dr. Shelton, Dr. Esser, Dr. Benesh, Dr. Gross, Dr. Scott, and their many colleagues advocated 50 years ago?
It is fascinating. And it tells you that we have a natural instinct for what’s right for our body. They knew it; they didn’t need the science. Dr. Shelton ridiculed “science” because the scientific community had betrayed its role. We don’t need so many studies to tell us what good healthy living is; we knew what it was years ago. While it is great to have so many studies coming out affirming this, it does seem silly to hear the news that eating a diet rich in fruits and vegetables actually prevents cancer. So I think it is important to listen to those instincts and think them through clearly, and not just write them off as unproven teaching. Shelton and the other teachers were right. They had the right instincts, and what they taught followed from that.

Above: Dr. Sultana with his wife and children.

So tell me about the Sultana family.
Well, that could be a very long story, as our family spans the globe. But here at home is my lovely wife, Constance, whom I have known since I was 18 years old. She has nourished my life more than any vegetable you could name. We have two kids at home, Michael, age 17, who is just finishing up high school this year, questioning everything, and is currently tackling the big question of what to do next; and Valerie, age 9, who is currently mentoring me in sensing the joy in every moment.

Do you have your own heroes in the Natural Hygiene movement? You mentioned Dr. Cinque and Dr. Esser. Are there others who inspired you along the way?
Dr. Cinque was a great connection because he was very humane and caring. Dr. Scott was always wonderful to learn from; and since he and I were both in Cleveland, he was always available for questions. He would share with me his own observations on physiology and healing. Also around that time a young Dr. John McDougall came to speak at my town hall, and he got my wheels turning. At NHA conferences it was always inspiring to talk to Drs. Goldhamer, Fuhrman, Sabatino, and the Burtons. At one conference, I had the great fortune of meeting Dr. Michael Klaper, who at the time was a “lone ranger” professor of health through nutrition, and has since brought his wisdom and experience to TrueNorth. And of course there was Dr. Ron Cridland. He was the medical doctor who was working at TrueNorth when I first looked into working there. He was incredibly generous and forthcoming in his advice on how to set up a practice in affiliation with TrueNorth. I can’t say enough about his role in getting me started.

Above: Peter Sultana in his college years, chatting with Dr. D.J. Scott.

What is your role at TrueNorth? Do you see all of the patients, and do you have your own private practice?
I keep an office now in the TrueNorth building, and serve as a medical consultant to the program participants. For many years I did see each one, coordinating their program, care, fasting, medications, and diet from start to finish. But TrueNorth has grown, and there are now so many people that come through every year that more doctors are needed. Fortunately, more doctors have come in the last few years, namely Drs. Klaper and Lorn, and more recently Dr. Veress. But we are just the medical layer. As you know, the underlying backbone of the TrueNorth program has always been the chiropractic staff of Drs. Goldhamer, Linzner, Isabeau, and Yuen. They see all of the patients day-in and day-out, guide them in their healing process and, when needed, help them with traditional drugless treatments. 

Do you and your TrueNorth colleagues group-consult about patients?
All the time. One of the best things about having all of us working under one roof, and with the same patients, is that we get to meet formally at least once a week to go over every single patient. Throughout the week we keep the conversation going informally as we bounce around ideas and remind each other of the overall patient goals of function, relief, empowerment, and healing.

Dr. Sultana, I think if Dr. Shelton were reading this interview he would be smiling right now. Thanks for your great contributions to the Natural Hygiene movement and your support of the NHA over the years. Thanks for sharing your wonderful experience and perspective.
You’re welcome, I hope it is helpful.

This interview originally appeared in Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal (IMCJ), June-July 2014, vol 13, no 3

Interview by Craig Gustafson

Alan Goldhamer, DC, is the founder and education director of TrueNorth Health Center in Santa Rosa, California. Under his guidance, the center has supervised fasts for thousands of patients and grown into one of the premier training facilities for doctors wishing to gain certification in the supervision of therapeutic fasting.

Dr Goldhamer is on the faculty at Bastyr University in Seattle, Washington, where he teaches a course on clinical fasting. He is the primary investigator in two published, landmark studies that demonstrate the benefits of water-only fasting, and is the author of The Health Promoting Cookbook and co-author of The Pleasure Trap: Mastering The Hidden Force That Undermines Health and Happiness.

Integrative Medicine: A Clinician's Journal (IMCJ): What made you interested in pursuing the effects of fasting?

Dr Goldhamer: I got started very young—about 16, actually. I wanted to be a better basketball player than my friend, Doug Lisle, who currently is the director of research and a clinical psychologist at TrueNorth Health Center. We grew up together and he could always beat me in basketball. I was looking for an edge.

So I started reading and came across the books on natural hygiene by Herbert Shelton and others, and it made a lot of sense. Ultimately, I met Alec Burton, MSc, DO, DC, who specialized in fasting supervision. He was the president of the Pacific College of Osteopathic Medicine. After I graduated from chiropractic college at Western States, I went to Australia, attended Pacific College, and did an internship with Dr Burton.

There, I had a chance to see what happens when you do nothing intelligently or use fasting appropriately. And it was pretty mind-bending. So I saw a lot of people who I had been trained to not get well, get well, and they did that consistently through the use of fasting and a vegan SOS-free diet—a plant-based, whole-foods diet free of sugar, oils, and salts.

They applied this regimen in a variety of conditions from diabetes and cardiovascular disease to autoimmune diseases. Conditions that seemed to be tied to dietary excess tended to respond predictably to the use of fasting followed by a health-promoting diet.

To read the article in its entirety (7 pages), please click here or on the attachment below.

Dr. Alan Goldhamer talks about the basics of health in this interview with the cool vegetarian.

Water-only Fasting: Treating Patients by Doing Nothing - Interview with Dr. Alan Goldhamer from Aron Choi on Vimeo.

Kevin Gianni of the Renegade Health Show recorded this interview during his stay at TrueNorth Health Center.

Alan Goldhamer Interview