There's plenty of research that backs up the claim that eating healthy — emphasizing fruits, veggies, whole grains and low-fat options — can lead to a healthy life, reduce risk of heart disease and fight high blood pressure, among other benefits.
As a former pediatrician at Hasbro Children's Hospital, Dr. Sandra Musial knows this very well. Musial, who previously taught pediatric residents and co-founded the HEALTH (Healthy Eating Active Living Through Hasbro) clinic, had specialized in nutrition, breast feeding, and pediatric obesity at the Rhode Island hospital until 2019, when she stepped away to create Plant Docs.
Musial said she and two other board certified physicians — Dr. Suyin Lee and Dr. Steven Stein, who both work in private practices based in Attleboro, Mass. — established the organization in 2021 with a mission to educate the public on both the health benefits and health risks of food choices through individual consultations and group classes at Plant City.
Musial graduated as a Culinary Coach from Harvard’s CHEF (Culinary Health Education Fundamentals) Coaching program, and has a certificate in plant-based nutrition from eCornell. She also holds a health coaching certificate from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.
Musial said that over the last year, as the organization completed the work to become a nonprofit, she focused on business training, completing an accelerator through Social Enterprise Greenhouse in January. In addition, Plant Docs graduated more than 200 participants via its "Jumpstart Your Health!" program. At the center of that six-hour course, she said, is evidence-based medicine that supports a "diet rich in whole plant foods like fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains, and low in animal products, refined carbohydrates, and overly processed foods."
The course includes an education facet, in addition to weight checks, blood pressure monitoring, before and after labs to assess cholesterol, diabetes, fatty liver disease, and inflammation.
The program includes two group sessions with the Plant Docs in person (or via Zoom), remote cooking classes and lots of recipes & resources. Dr. Musial said while remote work started as a necessity, it's worked better for clients in person teaching sessions.
"It's helped people build confidence and practice in real time," she said. "They're on the hook to get the ingredients and make it but having someone there to go through the steps is very helpful. That part of the program is intended to jumpstart graduates as they can learn new ways of cooking."
This year, she added, the courses will feature a new focus on global cuisines as well as influence from planned travel to the world's blue zones — regions in the world where people are speculated to live longer than average. Those include Okinawa, Japan; Sardinia, Italy; Nicoya, Costa Rica; Icaria, Greece; and Loma Linda, California.
According to the program's statistics, participants with a total cholesterol over 200 saw an average decrease of 38 points, while those with an elevated LDL (so-called "bad cholesterol") over 100 have an average decrease of 22 points. Still others, with elevated triglycerides over 150, saw them drop by 22 points.
Musial said she's also seen participants diagnosed with type 2 diabetes begin to show improved glucose control and start weaning off their diabetes meds. Those with fatty liver disease, as evidenced by elevated liver enzymes, show a marked decrease in their AST and ALT levels. Other participants note improved sleep, improved energy levels, less chronic pain, and a better sense of well-being, she said.
"We also measure high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP) as an inflammatory marker more specific for heart disease, and we see an average drop of 2.5 points for those who started above 3," she said.
Over the next year, Musial said she hopes to grow the organization's referral network instead of relying solely on marketing directly to consumers through plant city. She said she also has started to formally apply for grants to help expand Plant Docs community reach to those who can't afford to pay the cost of the program, which is $260.
"A good number of our patients tend to be middle-aged and when they're told they need to go on medications for high cholesterol or blood pressure, we're here as an alternative, to focus on the root cause of the problem and change it," Musial said. "One of my favorite stories is of a woman who came in with a healthy weight, but her doctor diagnosed her with type 2 diabetes due to high cholesterol and prescribed her medication for the problem. The doctor told her it was a genetic issue and there wasn't much else to do. Within a month of doing the program, her cholesterol was back in normal range and she was able to get off the medication."
