Plant-Powered Eating Is Just What These Vegan Doctors Ordered
Medical professionals are waking up to the benefits of a healthy and humane plant-based lifestyle. After all, who’d know better than they that a diet rich in vegetables and plant-based protein and low in cholesterol and fat can help prevent disease?
The list of vegan doctors below covers a variety of disciplines and backgrounds, and have one thing in common: They believe that the health benefits of a plant-based diet are just what the doctor ordered.
1. On average, Iranian-born gastroenterologist Dr. Angie Sadeghi helps one person go vegan per month and often gets patients off medicine for cholesterol, diabetes, and blood pressure by helping them switch to a healthy, plant-based diet. She is currently practicing in Southern California.
2. Dr. Mauricio González practices internal medicine and speaks about the positive health effects of a plant-powered life in his Spanish-language YouTube videos.
3. Dr. Harriet Davis is a physician of family and sports medicine. In her spare time, she competes as a bodybuilder, embodying the beauty and power of a plant-based lifestyle. She was also named 2015’s “Sexiest Vegan Next Door” in our annual contest.
4. Dr. Danielle Belardo is a cardiology fellow and American Board of Internal Medicine–certified physician who started the first vegan cardiology clinic in the Philadelphia area. She was even a finalist in PETA’s Sexiest Vegan Next Door Contest in 2019. She advocates for animal-free nutrition and has helped more than 100 patients go vegan, which she says has helped them reverse chronic conditions such as hypertension and diabetes.
5. Texas-based Dr. Garth Davis is a weight-loss surgeon and Ironman triathlete. His Instagram caption reads, “Please eat your veggies! Doctors orders.”
6. Author and doctor Caldwell B. Esselstyn Jr. throws an annual vegan festival called Plant-Stock at his family farm. The weekend-long festival takes place near Albany, New York, and features lectures, wellness activities, and delicious plant-based meals.
7. Dr. Michelle McMacken is an internal-medicine physician based in New York City. She informs others of the benefits of vegan eating not only through her practice but also by writing op-eds and articles and speaking on podcasts and at seminars. Oh, and she recently hosted a screening of the new What the Health documentary. Is there anything she can’t do?
8. Dr. Benjamin Matthews’ gorgeous Instagram account showcases his skills in the kitchen.
9. Tati Kvis, M.D. is an interventional cardiologist who has been vegan for the love of all animals since she was eight years old.
10. Dermatologist Neo Tea knows that avoiding meat and dairy foods helps your skin glow from the inside out.
11. When Dr. Joel Kahn realized that his vegan diet could reverse heart-disease symptoms and plaque buildup in arteries, he changed up his cardiology practice to offer heart-disease treatment and reversal programs centered on plant-based eating. He also owns a plant-based restaurant in Ferndale, Michigan, called GreenSpace Café.
12. Check out physician and chiropractor Dr. Benjamin Benulis’ free guide to plant-based health and healing.
13. UCLA eye-surgery resident Adeleh Yarmohammadi, or Dr. Adele, has 20/20 vision when it comes to seeing the benefits of a plant-based lifestyle.
14. In addition to practicing cardiology and training for marathons, Dr. Jaimela Dulaney runs a vegan nutrition class, which includes cooking demonstrations and menu-planning tips and presents scientific evidence supporting the role of a plant-based diet in the reversal of lifestyle diseases.
15. Alex Singer specializes in obstetrics and states, “Compassion starts at conception.” He’s delivered babies for several mothers who were either vegan prior to their pregnancies or converted during them. Their babies were all born healthy, and the mothers gained appropriate amounts of weight during their pregnancies and returned to their pre-pregnancy weights within six weeks of their deliveries. In fact, Dr. Singer’s own son resulted from a vegan pregnancy. He’s now a 9-year-old athlete, a top student, and a vegan activist.
Dr. Singer also always recommends a vegan prenatal vitamin rather than one including gelatin or fish parts, as neither one of these animal-derived ingredients are necessary or healthy.
The medical establishment is catching on to the truth that meat and animal-derived foods are not part of a healthy diet. The World Health Organization reports that processed meat causes cancer, and according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, vegans have lower rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and cancer than nonvegans do. It’s no wonder that the American Medical Association recently issued a new policy statement calling for a complete ban on processed meats and an increase in plant-based meals at hospitals.
Groups such as the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, which combines the expertise of 12,000 physicians, advocate for changing the way doctors treat chronic diseases and encourage prevention over pills.
Inspired to go vegan? Order our free vegan starter kit to help you make the transition:
