A look back at 2023 for Plant-Based Health Professionals UK

In a challenging year marked by societal struggles, declining human and planetary health, and exacerbated by political conflicts and climate disasters, our commitment to fostering change remains steadfast. We’ve dedicated our efforts to advocating and supporting a transition toward a whole food, plant-based diet and lifestyle. Join us in prioritising health, resilience, and sustainable living amidst these formidable challenges.

NEW TEAM MEMBERS: This year we have welcomed several new team members who are working on specific projects. Claire Lynch, RD, has taken over as educational lead, overseeing our online and in-person education programmes. Michael Metoudi, RD, has joined as a research dietitian. He has initiated a research survey for dietitians and is working on a number of systematic reviews. Isabelle Sadler has joined as a research assistant and has written up our member survey for publication. She is now working on analysing hospital menus. Karen Lee has joined as events manager and was instrumental in making the VegMed 2023 conference a success. Clare Day and Daisy Lund, both GPs, have launched the PBHP UK podcast…more about that later.

VEGMED LONDON 2023: The big event of the year was organising and hosting VegMed 2023. Our first in-person conference since 2019, VegMed 2023 took place at Imperial College London on September 9th and 10th (the hottest weekend of the year!) and was a collaboration between Plant-Based Health Professionals UK and PAN International — Physicians Association for Nutrition, and supported by ProVeg International. The overarching theme was ‘Bringing Plant-Based Nutrition into Healthcare’. We had a thoroughly enjoyable weekend, full of inspiration, knowledge exchange and networking.

The VegMed conferencing brand started in 2012 and is Europe’s largest conference dedicated to plant-based nutrition. This year was no different. The conference featured over 40 speakers from the fields of medicine, nutrition and research and brought attendees up to date on the science and practice of plant-based nutrition. Topics covered ranged from clinical practice, managing chronic conditions, public sector catering, medical education, community cooking, behaviour change, policy implementation and more. The content was designed to be applicable and accessible to health professionals and non-health professionals alike. Our small conference team led by our events manager Karen Lee who did a fantastic job with pulling off a truly memorable event.

You can access the full conference on demand till March 2024 at vegmed.uk. Read our conference report, written by Isabelle Sadler, here.

ORGANISATION OVERVIEW AND STRATEGY: VegMed 2023 brought a renewed focus and motivation to our work and has allowed us to formally articulate our mission and the role we play in the plant-based and vegan movements. Read our organsational overview documents, long and short.

GENERAL PUBLIC EDUCATION

Factsheets: We have continued to maintain and add to our large collection of free factsheets. Thanks to the expertise of our education lead Claire Lynch, our members and the fabulous design skills of our graphic designer Kate Dunbar, these are extensively used by healthcare professionals in clinical practice. They cover diet recommendations but increasingly include broader evidence-based lifestyle recommendations. Highlights from 2023 include three factsheets on chronic kidney disease (chronic kidney disease, dialysis and transplant) developed with our member and registered dietitian Angeline Taylor as a collaboration with the BDA renal nutrition speciality group. Kiran Agarwal, GP, developed a factsheet in her speciality area of airway health. Plant-based on a budget is an essential resource, given the ongoing high cost of food, developed by our member and nutritionist Faith Cavalli. Rohini and Claire developed the factsheet on plant sources of iron. Alan Desmond has written a much-requested guide on preparing for a colonoscopy. Several factsheets have been translated into Turkish and French with the generous support of members Didem Varol RD and Dr. Laurence Froidevaux, along with several other volunteers from the vegan community. In the pipeline we have factsheets on protein, gastro-oesophageal reflex, COPD and more.

Articles: We have an extensive collection of evidence-based articles on plant-based nutrition with up-to-date scientific references. This year our members Elena Holmes contributed an article on nightshade foods and Laura Janse Van Rensburg on eating disorders and veganism. We have also written articles for like-minded organisations, including Eating Better, MyNutriWeb, SARX, Green Alliance.

21-day plant-based health challenge: This has had a makeover thanks to Claire Lynch. Since the launch in October 2020, over 5000 people have signed up, 73% of whom were not vegan. Only 31.1% reported they ate a plant-based diet prior to the challenge. This increased to 55.5% at 3 months. This increase came predominantly from the omnivorous group which reduced from 37.8% to 16.7%. 62.2% of these respondents reported their diet was “more plant-based”, with only 22.4% reporting no change in their diet. 48.2% reported finding it easy to eat plant-based with the majority reporting they would continue.

VegFest UK events: We love supporting the VegFest events, run by our friend and longstanding supporter Tim Barford. We participated in both Brighton VegFest in April and London VegFest in November with a day of experts talks from our members and a stall. We met so many people who had not yet heard of our work and also a number of healthcare professionals. Two wonderful weekends.

HEALTH PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

CPD-accredited webinars: Led by nutritionist and PBHP UK communications lead Rohini Bajekal, our CPD-accredited webinar programme launched in 2020 and has delivered over 70 live presentations with the recordings available for our members. This has served to bring together a community of global plant-based advocates and reach health professionals who are not plant-based yet but are interested in incorporating lifestyle and nutrition interventions into their clinical practice. In general, we have 100–300 participants for each webinar with an international audience of predominantly health professionals. In 2023 we hosted 13 webinars on a wide range of topics, including cancer, fatty liver disease, palliative care, rheumatological conditions and more.

Cooking for the climate, developed and led by Dr Hayley Tait, is our culinary medicine course, now in its 3rd year. This has initially been aimed at UK medical students who are able to choose 10% of their curriculum in the form of Special Study Modules (SSMs). Hayley delivered the SSM in two medical schools in 2021/2022 academic year (Exeter and Southampton) for year 2 and 3 students and in 2023, King’s College London (the largest student healthcare body in Europe) came on board. This programme has a blended approach with both eLearning and live sessions and teaches students the practical skills and knowledge required to support patients to adopt a healthy plant-based diet. It has been a popular course and received excellent feedback. The course can be adapted for a range of audiences so please contact us if you are interested in delivering this course.

University of Winchester plant-based nutrition course: This course has been a team effort and continues to go from strength to strength. It is now in its fifth year and has had nearly 900 participants from around the world. It remains the only University-based plant-based nutrition course in the UK and is CPD accredited by the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. It is a self-paced 8-week course, which provides a thorough science-based grounding in the subject. It remains popular amongst healthcare professionals and interested public. The course along with PBHP UK resources and webinars are recommended as part of the Green Impact for Health toolkit for General Practitioners in England. So far there are more than 900 General Practices taking part in this scheme. This year, the newly launched Glas toolkit from the Irish College of GPs also recommends the course and other PBHP UK resources to its members.

Lifestyle medicine for cancer prevention and survivorship: This year Shireen Kassam, in collaboration with Dr Laura Freeman and other PBHP UK contributors, has launched a second short course at the University of Winchester. Diet and lifestyle approaches for cancer is not a topic that is widely covered within healthcare curricula or training. This course provides the knowledge and skills required to implement evidence-based lifestyle medicine strategies for cancer prevention and living well after a cancer diagnosis. Although aimed at practicing healthcare professionals from all disciplines, it also has relevance to the wider public. The content covers the six pillars of lifestyle medicine, namely healthy diets, physical activity, restorative sleep, healthy relationships, management of stress and avoidance of harmful substances, and provides actionable take aways for personal and professional practice. The course aims to provide individuals and practitioners the confidence to disseminate this information amongst their patients, families and their communities.

An initial soft launch has seen 30 people take for the first course.

P.S. At time of writing the UoW’s website is have some difficulties. Direct links to booking these courses below.

Plant-Based Nutrition

Cancer and lifestyle medicine

Hospital grand rounds and education meetings: Every UK hospital has a weekly Grand Round where staff have the opportunity to present to the rest of the hospital staff. Since the start of the pandemic, these have moved to a virtual setting, and this has provided us with the opportunity to invite ourselves and be invited onto these programmes. In addition, NHS and hospital sustainability teams have invited us to present at a number of educational meetings. In 2023, Shireen, along with team members LJ Smith and Laura Freeman, have given presentations at King’s College Hospital, Imperial College Healthcare NHS trust, Colchester Hospital, NHS graduate and management scheme, West Hertfordshire teaching hospitals, Darent Valley Hospital, Welsh Hospitals grand round and Netherlands teaching hospitals (Canisius Wilhelmina Ziekenhuis Nijmegen, RIjnstate ziekenhuis Arnhem and RadboudUMC Nijmegen). We already have a number of invitations lined up for 2024.

Medical and healthcare teaching: Members have spoken at numerous student and trainee events including for the Liverpool University Lifestyle Medicine Society online and in-person events, Norwich Nutritank Society, Leeds Medical School planetary health module, York Hull Medical School Health and Climate change MSc, London respiratory trainees study day, BDA sustainable diets study day, Centre for Sustainable Healthcare online events, Indian Society of Lifestyle Medicine, Physicians Association for Nutrition, India, GP trainers workshop (Ealing), European Young Family Doctors’ Movement, MyNutriWeb and contributed several talks for their sustainable diets course

Conferences: PBHP UK team members continue to have a presence at lifestyle medicine and plant-based nutrition conferences. This year Dr Gemma Newman spoke at the PCRM’s International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine and at the first plant-based nutrition conference in Greece. Dr Alan Desmond spoke at Plantrician Project International Plant-Based Nutrition in Healthcare conference. Both Alan and Gemma spoke at the Doctors for Nutrition, Nutrition in Healthcare Conference in Australia. Rosie Martin spoke at the Ministry of Defense GP conference. Shireen Kassam gave a keynote address at the ENT Scotland winter conference. She also spoke at Brazil’s first plant-based nutrition conference, Danish vegetarian society’s healthcare conference and Compassion in World Farming’s Extinction or Regeneration conference.

Shireen, alongside fellow plant-based haematologists Urvi Shah and Manmit Kaur, hosted two sessions on well-being with a focus on plant-based lifestyle medicine at the British Society of Haematology annual conference. Shireen also participated in the Royal College of Pathologists International Pathology Day online event speaking about the benefits of plant-based diets for sustainable healthcare.

Claire Lynch and Isabelle Sadler had oral poster presentations at the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine Conference, presenting results of the 21-day plant-based health challenge and the member survey.

Shireen Kassam continues to provide a monthly news review to keep the health professional community up to date in the field. This is shared via Medium and our social media platforms including Instagram and can also be found on our website under news updates.

COMMUNITY WORK

Community plant-based cook school: With our funding, PBHP UK supports Vinny’s Kitchen, a community plant-based cook school based in Liverpool. Founded and run by Dr Hayley Tait, the school runs weekly plant-based cooking classes and distributes the food to the homeless community and other vulnerable groups. In the last year, it has provided 60 school age children with regular cooking classes and held 5 classes with vulnerable families identified by the charity An Hour for Others. It has produced over 2200 meals distributed to the local homeless and residents of the YMCA and engaged local community involvement from retail and medical sectors.

BME dementia: We were delighted to partner with Touchstone to provide a practical online and in-person series of workshops on healthy diet and lifestyles for people living with dementia and their carers. The programme was very well received.

Other community work: We have provided talks, workshops and resources for the MDS Scotland patient support group, Yes to Life annual conference, Made in Hackney and Chartwell Cancer Trust.

PODCAST: Thanks to GP’s Dr Clare Day and Daisy Lund, we now have a podcast! In a Nutshell launched in June and already has 13 fantastic episode. The podcast provides a new platform for sharing evidence-based plant-based nutrition information. Aimed at healthcare professionals, Clare and Daisy provide informal yet informative and accessible conversations with experts who share the latest science, evidence and practice for embedding plant-based nutrition interventions into the clinic.

Listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or Amazon Podcasts. Subscribe and share widely and don’t forget to leave a review.

MEDIA AND PR COVERAGE: Thanks to the hard work of Eden Green PR and Rohini Bajekal, we have secured extensive media coverage in the national, international and trade media raising awareness of the healthfulness of plant-based diets as well as their environmental benefits. See here for more details. PBHP UK is now on the radar of several leading journalists, and we are regularly featured in national media outlets such as the Mail Online, BBC News, Metro, Independent, Telegraph, The Times, Newsweek, The Express, Healthline, Readers digest and more, with 100% positive coverage on plant-based diets and health to date. We are proactive in leading campaigns as well as tackling concerns that arise with regards to plant-based diets such as bone health in vegans. On average, we are featured in between 12–20 media outlets every month, with an estimated reach of 50 million to 350 million.

POLICY WORK: Our main work has focussed on our membership of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change (UKHACC). The organisation represents more than one million health professionals through organsiational membership. Its work focusses on the intersection between climate change and health outcomes, advocating for climate policies that will protect both individual and planetary health. We have been part of the writing group on their policy paper on biodiversity, climate change and health, which has a strong focus on food system transition. We attended the launch of this policy brief at the Royal College of Physicians along with our ambassador Kate Strong who took part in a cycle ride. We were thrilled to receive a fully plant-based lunch at the event. We are also delighted that the UKHACC has endorsed the Plant Based Treaty. In 2024 we will be working with the UKHACC to further influence the food environment in and outside of healthcare.

To support our policy work, we have partnered with various organisations including Plant-Based Food Alliance UK, The European Alliance for Plant-based Foods (EAPF) and PlantEurope Network. We support by providing evidence-based nutrition advice and advocacy.

RESEARCH: We continue to make a small contribution to research in the field on plant-based nutrition. To date this has involved two aspects, medical publications and research surveys. Our research dietitian Michael Metoudi has conducted a survey of dietitians in the UK and Ireland around beliefs and attitudes towards plant-based diets in clinical practice. Isabelle Sadler has submitted the findings of our member survey for publication. In collaboration with Dr Urvi Shah from MSKCC and Dr Zahra Kassam co-founder of Plant Based Canada, we have had a survey request accepted by the American Society of Clinical Oncology to investigate attitudes and practices of oncology professionals to nutrition counselling. You can find our list of publications here.

Medical publications in 2023

A Whole Food Plant-Based Approach to Ulcerative Colitis; A Case Series. Marselou D, Kassam S. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. 2023;0(0). doi:10.1177/15598276231213325

Attitudes of hospital patients regarding removal of processed and unprocessed red meats from menus to support sustainable healthcare targets: A single-centre survey. Truman, M, Smith, L-J, Kassam, S. Lifestyle Medicine. 2023;e87. https://doi.org/10.1002/lim2.87

Kassam S. Controlling avian influenza: we need to move away from farming animals to solve our inter-related crises. BMJ. 2023 Apr 21;381:874. doi: 10.1136/bmj.p874. PMID: 37085173.

Kassam S. Obesity: potatoes, pasta, and rice are not the problem. BMJ. 2023 Apr 25;381:938. doi: 10.1136/bmj.p938. PMID: 37185133.

BOOKS BY PBHP UK MEMBERS: We have some fantastic additions to the plant-based nutrition and lifestyle library from PBHP UK members. These include The Plant-Based Dietitians Guide to Fertility by Lisa Simon, RD, Plant Powered Little People by Paula Hallam, RD and our ambassador Dr Gemm Newman’s second book Get well, Stay Well. You can find all our books here.

SUPPORTING MISSION ALIGNED CAMPAIGNS AND ORGANISATIONS: We support a number of campaigns and organisations with our nutrition and health expertise. This includes, Scrap factory farming (Humane Being); Plant Based Treaty; Plant-Based Schools and Councils (Animal Rising); Plant-Based Universities; Alliance to Save Our Antibiotics; The Civil Service Vegan Network. In addition, we have joined forces with the wider climate active healthcare community through the informal association known as the Planetary Health Hub.

Running on Plants: We have absolutely loved partnering with Tom Pickering and his new campaign Running on Plants. Plant-based diets and physical activity is a winning combination and has provided a fun way for our community to get active and spread the plant-based message further afield. As ambassador for the campaign, our patient advocate Kate Dunbar is a fantastic role model. She has recovered from psoriatic arthritis using a plant-based lifestyle approach. She has been off medication for over 5 years and this year ran a marathon!

OUR AMBASSADORS: We are super proud of our amazing ambassadors who continue to spread the plant-based message far and wide. Dr Chidi Ngwaba took part in debates at the Public Health Collaboration Conference and at the Oxford Union, with the latter resulting in a win for the vegan proposition. He has also conducted a speaking tour of Africa spreading knowledge around healthy diet and lifestyle. Dr Gemma Newman has released her second book and continues to a prominent voice promoting healthy living for general public and health professional audiences. She has partnered with PCRM on their One Healthy World programme and she also spoke at at the European Commission conference on food systems. Dr Alan Desmond is a key voice on gut health, hosting in person events and being a guest on numerous podcasts and conferences. Kate Strong has achieved a remarkable feat, cycling 3000 miles around the UK highlighting the climate and biodiversity breakdown and visiting projects that are providing practice solutions. She received national media coverage of her challenge and all completed on a 100% plant-based diet. She continues to focus on climate health through her work with Climategames.

OUR MEMBERSHIP: Our members are key to achieving our organisational aims. This year our membership has remained stable at around 900 members, with two-third beings health professionals. We continue to engage with members through weekly newsletters, a closed facebook group, surveys and an annual AGM. Members can also connect through our website members area. Our member Sian Roberts runs an active and successful book club. Our CPD-accredited webinar recordings provide a wealth of knowledge to support member eduction. Our member Didem Varol, RD, offered members a series of free Food for Life classes. We have also had the opportunity to meet in person several times over the last year with socials in Glasgow, Birmingham, Brighton and London. In January we will be joining a Climategames challenge to get active and plant trees.

Plant Based Health Online: Sadly, our sister organisation has now closed. We opened our virtual doors as the height of the pandemic 3 years ago. We provided over 700 appointments to people looking to improve their diet and lifestyle along with a number of group programmes. Unfortunately, the service is no longer financially viable and we feel we are better to spend our resources and energy on furthering the mission of Plant-Based Health Professionals UK.

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR 2024: We will continue with our main programme areas. There will be more in-person and online educational events. A new project will be our partnership with the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine to offer the certification in lifestyle medicine in the UK. We will be launching a campaign asking hospitals in the UK to remove red and processed meat from menus for reasons relating to health and sustainability. Along-side this, we will be initiating a research project to evaluate hospitals Green Plans and catering menus. We continue to work on our PBHP UK documentary. We cannot wait for the cinema release of the documentary, I Could Never Go Vegan, which has features many of our members. Our ongoing research projects will generate results.

A MASSIVE THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS: We work with some wonderful people and organisations, without whom our work would not be possible. Thank you to Carmen, Carol and Rob from Mad Ideas who run our website. Eden Green PR who amplify our message. Keith Lesser of Vegan Accountants. Jane Land and Matthew Glover who support our projects. VegFund, Karuna foundation and ProVeg for their grants. Tim Barford of VegFest, Geeta Daswani of the Daswani Law Company and Stephen Coote of VeganFitness for their guidance and support. We look forward to working with you all in 2024.

Please follow my organisation ‘plant-based health professionals UK’ on Instagram @plantbasedhealthprofessionals and facebook. You can support our work by joining as a member or making a donation via the website.

A look back at 2022 for Plant-Based Health Professionals UK

It has been a challenging year for a number of reasons. Despite this, we have had a busy and productive year furthering our mission to promote whole food plant-based nutrition for individual and planetary health.

OUR MEMBERS: We had the opportunity to conduct a research survey of our members. This has been led by the hard work of our member Isabelle Sadler. You can read some key facts about our members in the poster. Now in its fourth year, our membership programme continues to be at the heart of what we do. We have enjoyed two successful in person members socials this year, with more planned in 2023.

GENERAL PUBLIC EDUCATION

Factsheets: We have continued to maintain and add to our large collection of free factsheets. Thanks to the expertise of our members and the fabulous design skills of our graphic designer Kate Dunbar, these are extensively used by healthcare professionals in clinical practice. Several have been translated for use in countries in which our members reside, including German and Farsi, with more translations planned. We are also collaborating with the British Dietetic Association to produce factsheets on plant-based diets for kidney failure.

Articles: We have an extensive collection of evidence-based articles on plant-based nutrition with up-to-date scientific references. This year we have updated our articles on bone health, prostate cancer, type 2 diabetes, planetary health and more.

For kids: Thanks to our team member and paediatrician Miriam Martinez-Biarge, we have developed extensive resources for families who are raising plant-based kids. This has been hugely useful for parents and for those working in nurseries and schools.

21-day plant-based health challenge: Since the launch in October 2020, 3800 people have signed up, 73% of whom were not vegan. 79% of participants joined to improve their health, with the commonest reason being for weight loss. At the end of the challenge 68% of participants described their diet as vegetarian or vegan with the majority planning to stick with this way of eating. Three months after taking the challenge 72% described their diet as vegetarian or vegan. Please do share this free resource with friends, family members, clients and patients.

PUBLIC EVENTS

PCRM One Healthy World: At the start of the year we partnered with PCRM for their One Healthy World program delivering a number of talks and cooking demonstrations for an international audience. This online programme aimed to support people to transition to a healthy plant-based diet. A number of our team, including Rohini Bajekal, Leila Dehghan, Gemma Newman, Hayley Tait and myself contributed. The recordings are still available to view for free.

VegFest: We have continued to support Tim Barford and the VegFest events, in both the online and in-person events during 2021/2022. We have hosted health talks and panel discussions. We were delighted to be back in person on November 12th at London Olympia, where we provided a day of talks and had an information stall. All these events have highlighted the expertise of PBHP UK members and continue to provide credible education for the public and growing vegan community. We were also delighted to win Best Vegan Initiative in the VegFest awards in November.

Additional events have included, co-hosting an in person community event on May 13th 2022 for the Iranian community in London, with plant-based Iranian catering; Nutrition education with talks and cooking demonstrations at the BAPS Charities Festival of Inspiration at Neasden Temple, London July 2022; Online education sessions for the BME Dementia Service in Leeds; Regular free cook-a-longs via zoom with Dr Hayley Tait, including weekly during the No Meat May campaign; Rohini Bajekal, Hayley Tait and Shireen Kassam have provided educational talks in schools on plant-based nutrition.

HEALTH PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION

CPD-accredited webinars: Led by nutritionist and PBHP UK communications lead Rohini Bajekal, our CPD-accredited webinar programme launched in 2020 and has delivered over 60 live presentations with the recordings available for our members. This has served to bring together a community of global plant-based health professionals and reach health professionals who are not plant-based yet but are interested in incorporating lifestyle and nutrition interventions into their clinical practice. In general, we have 200–500 participants for each webinar with an international audience of predominantly health professionals. We have more exciting and interesting topics for 2023.

Culinary medicine course: With the support of VegFund, Hayley Tait has developed a culinary medicine course called Cooking for the Climate. This has initially been aimed at UK medical students who are able to choose 10% of their curriculum in the form of Special Study Modules (SSMs). Hayley has delivered the SSM in two medical schools in 2021/2022 academic year (Exeter and Southampton) for year 2 and 3 students. It has now been accepted at King’s College London (the largest student healthcare body in Europe) for 2022/2023. This programme has a blended approach with both eLearning and live sessions and teaches students the practical skills and knowledge required to support patients to adopt a healthy plant-based diet. This has been popular and received excellent feedback. The results have presented at the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine Annual Conference in September 2022. This course can be adapted for a range of audience so please contact us if you are interested in delivering this course.

University of Winchester plant-based nutrition course: This course has really been a team effort and continues to go from strength to strength. It is now in its fourth year and has had over 600 participants from around the world. It remains the only University-based plant-based nutrition course in the UK and is CPD accredited by the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. It is a self-paced 8-week course, which provides a thorough science-based grounding in the subject. It remains popular amongst healthcare professionals and interested public. The course and PBHP UK resources and webinars are recommended as part of the Green Impact for Health toolkit for General Practitioners in the UK. So far there are 976 General Practices taking part in this scheme.

Virtual tour of hospital grand rounds: Every UK hospital has a weekly Grand Round where staff have the opportunity to present to the rest of the hospital staff. Since the start of the pandemic, these have moved to a virtual setting, and this has provided us with the opportunity to invite ourselves onto these programmes. Shireen, along with team members LJ Smith, Rosie Martin and Laura Freeman, have given presentations on plant-based nutrition at King’s College Hospital, Royal Devon and Exeter NHS trust, NHS Aryshire and Arran Hospital, Royal Cornwall Hospitals and Royal Hospitals of Derby and Burton. Upcoming dates at Dartford and Gravesham NHS trust, Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS trust and the Royal Brompton and Harefield Hospitals. We plan to continue to reach as many hospitals as we can through these Grand Rounds.

Plant-based nutrition in hospitals: Give bacon the boot is our campaign to support the removal of processed red meat from hospital menus and move towards a plant-based menu. We are using King’s College Hospital in London as a case study. Here, the executive has made a commitment to remove processed red meat from menus and move towards a plant-based foods environment. During the last year we have been able to support more plant-based meals on the staff and patient menu, support staff to sign up for Veganuary and No Meat May and deliver webinars. Some initially successes have included removing the surcharge on soya milk in all coffee outlets and a commitment that catering at all hospital and staff events will be vegetarian (sadly 100% plant-based was not ratified).

We have provided a number of webinars for Nutritank, a medical student and junior doctor-led organisation campaigning for more nutrition education in medical schools.

Shireen Kassam continues to provide a weekly news review to keep the health professional community up to date in the field. This is shared via Medium and our social media platforms including Instagram and can also be found on our website under weekly news updates.

PLANT-BASED NUTRITION IN CLINICAL PRACTICE

This new textbook has been a major project over the last year, involving PBHP UK members and international contributors. The book was published on September 15th. It is an evidence-based text for incorporation into healthcare courses at universities and medical schools. This will be a valuable resource throughout the world.

SUPPORTING CLIMATE ACTIVE HEALTHCARE PROFESSIONALS:

This year has seen successful collaborations with climate active healthcare groups in the UK who increasingly recognise the need to transition to a plant-based food system. This includes; Online talks to Greener Practice groups; Keynote lecture and sponsorship of the Eco Medics conference May 2022; Joining as a partner organisation of the UK Health Alliance on Climate Change with the opportunity to lead an educational session in December; Side event presentation at the Planetary Health Alliance Conference Nov 2022 ‘This house believes that sustainable plant-based nutrition education should be a core component of all healthcare curriculum’; Contribution to the Introduction to Sustainable Healthcare course from the Centre of Sustainable Healthcare.

COMMUNITY WORK

Community plant-based cookschool: With our funding, PBHP UK supports Vinny’s Kitchen, a community plant-based cook school based in Liverpool. Founded and run by Dr Hayley Tait, the school runs weekly plant-based cooking classes and distributes the food to the homeless community and other vulnerable groups. In the last year, it has provided 60 school age children with regular cooking classes and held 5 classes with vulnerable families identified by the charity An Hour for Others. It has produced over 2200 meals distributed to the local homeless and residents of the YMCA and engaged local community involvement from retail and medical sectors.

MEDIA AND PR COVERAGE HIGHLIGHTS

Thanks to the hard work of Eden Green PR and Rohini Bajekal, we have secured extensive media coverage in the national, international and trade media raising awareness of the healthfulness of plant-based diets as well as their environmental benefits. Please see here for more details. PBHP UK is now on the radar of several leading journalists, and we are regularly featured in national media outlets such as the Mail Online, BBC News, Metro, Independent, Telegraph, The Times etc., with 100% positive coverage on plant-based diets and health to date. We are proactive in leading campaigns as well as tackling concerns that arise with regards to plant-based diets such as bone health in vegans. On average, we are featured in between 12–20 media outlets every month, with an estimated reach of 50 million to 350 million.

PARTNERSHIPS, COLLABORATIONS AND POLICY WORK:

We have developed good working relationships and affiliations with a number of organisations including ProVeg, the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine, True Health Initiative, Doctors for Nutrition (Australia), Evidence-based eating (New Zealand), PCRM and more.

To support our policy work, we have partnered with various organisations including Plant-Based Food Alliance UK, The European Alliance for Plant-based Foods (EAPF) and PlantEurope Network. We support by providing evidence-based nutrition advice and advocacy.

We regularly attend and participate in All-Party Parliamentary Groups (APPGs) for example on the National Food Strategy (food and climate change, dietary inequalities etc). We continue to support like-minded organisations in other countries where we can lend our expertise either on an advisory capacity, support for programmes and campaigns or by providing education. This includes the Malaysian Vegetarian Society, Catalyst (Thailand), Reverse Factor (India), NutritionScience.Inand Sampoorna Ahara (India), Langata Hospital (Kenya) and Hayak Hospital (Lebanon), PAN Netherlands and PAN Switzerland.

CONFERENCES

PBHP UK team members continue to have a presence at lifestyle medicine and plant-based nutrition conferences. This past year Alan Desmond and Gemma Newman spoke at the PCRM’s annual conference August 2022: International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine; Rohini Bajekal spoke at the Essex Equip Lifestyle Medicine conference in September 2022 and Vegan Life Live (along with other PBHP UK members) in June 2022; Shireen Kassam spoke at the Irish Society of Lifestyle Medicine launch event June 2022 and the Indian, Romanian and Nigerian Lifestyle Medicine Society conferences. Linda Karlberg and Shireen Kassam spoke at the Lifestyle Medicine Festival of the North online conference for medical students. Gemma Newman and Shireen Kassam spoke at The Real Truth About Health online conference, April 2022. Hayley Tait had a poster presentation on the cooking for the climate project plant-based nutrition at the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine Conference Sept 2022

RESEARCH

Our ambition is to contribute to relevant medical research in the field on plant-based nutrition. To date this has involved two aspects, medical publications and research surveys. You can find our publications here.

Medical publications in 2022

• The Impact of Stopping Medications and Introducing a Whole Food Plant-Based Diet on Patients Living with Multiple Sclerosis — A Report of Two Cases. Cuthburt, M, Lewandowska, M. Freeman, L, Devine, C. Lee, K. Kassam, S. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. December 2022 https://doi.org/10.1177/15598276221141403
• A Whole Food Plant-Based Approach for Migraine; A Case Series. Morton O, Shehata M, Gabbitas N, Kassam S. American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine. August 2022. doi:10.1177/15598276221120520
• The Role of Nutrition in Cancer Prevention — Should You Listen to Your Doctor or Influencer? Shireen Kassam and Laura Freeman. Am J Lifestyle Med. 2022, first published 6th July 2022. https://doi.org/10.1177/15598276221112331

PBHP UK members research survey: We have commenced an ethically approved research survey to document the dietary habits and health status of our members. This is a unique opportunity to document the diet and health of a self-selected group of mainly UK residents who have adopted a healthy plant-based diet. We will be publishing these results in 2023.

BOOKS BY PBHP UK MEMBERS:

• Eating Plant-Based by Dr Shireen Kassam and Dr Zahra Kassam (Published January 2022)
• Living PCOS Free by Dr Nitu Bajekal and Rohini Bajekal (Published April 2022)
• The complete guide to POI and early menopause By Dr Hannah Short and Dr Mandy Leonhardt (Published June 2022)
• Collaboration with Ella Mills of Deliciously Ella for her best-selling book How To Go Plant-Based featuring chapters by six PBHP UK members (Published August 2022). Sunday Times Bestseller and no.2 across Amazon UK.

CAMPAIGNS: We are supporting a number of campaigns with our nutrition and health expertise. This includes, Scrap factory farming (Humane Being); Plant Based Treaty; Plant-Based Schools and Councils (Animal Rebellion); Stop the supply of dairy (Animal Rebellion).

NEW DOCUMENTARY

We cannot wait for the launch of this new documentary by Tom and James Pickering. Featuring a number of PBHP UK members, it covers the huge benefits of veganism for animals, health and the planet.

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR 2023

We have commenced a collaboration with the Department for Education vegan network to provide a series of webinars over the next one year. The invitations to these webinars will be distributed to all Government civil service departments. We are planning more in person events and conferences, including more networking events for our members. We will be working on launching our joint factsheets on kidney failure with the BDA renal specialist groups plus additional factsheets on eating on a budget, airway conditions and meeting protein requirements. We have more research publications planned. We continue our community work with the BME Dementia service and our monthly online webinars. We will be making further progress on the PBHP UK documentary, we have a new course planned with the University of Winchester and we will be holding an in-person conference for health professionals.

A MASSIVE THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS: We work with some wonderful people and organisations, without whom our work would not be possible. Thank you to Roger Phillips for editing all our webinars free of charge. Carmen, Carol and Rob from Mad Ideas who run our website. Eden Green PR who amplify our message. Keith Lesser of Lesser and Co chartered accountants. Jane Land and Matthew Glover who support our projects. VegFund, Karuna foundation and ProVeg for their grants. Tim Barford of VegFest, Geeta Daswani of the Daswani Law Company and Stephen Coote of VeganFitness for their guidance and support. We look forward to working with you all in 2023.

Please follow my organisation ‘plant-based health professionals UK’ on Instagram @plantbasedhealthprofessionals and facebook. You can support our work by joining as a member or making a donation via the website.

A look back at 2021 for Plant-Based Health Professionals UK

A look back at 2020 for Plant-based Health Professionals UK

It’s been a difficult year for us all. At PBHP UK we have had to adapt our working accordingly. Despite this we have had an exciting and productive year. These are the highlights.

PLANT POWERED EXPO — FEBRUARY 1ST 2020: We got off to a great start with our first collaboration of the year with VegFest UK. Team members and education lead Leila Dehghan organised a packed day of talks on plant-based nutrition and health. We were delighted to involve our members who spoke on a wide range of topics, including Elena Holmes on ‘plant-based meat alternatives’, Rohini Bajekal on ‘things to know before you go vegan’, Carmela Arturi on ‘how to transition to healthy plant-based diet’, and Leila herself on ‘plant-based diets for athletes’. You can watch the recordings of the talks on our YouTube channel. Team member and communications lead Rohini Bajekal ran our stall and engaged with a large number of people during the day, signing up more than 30 new members.

The evening saw our first and only (so far) live members social where we connected with around 20 PBHP UK members. It was lovely to meet and chat to our truly diverse group of members, all committed to promoting the plant-based message.

PLANT-BASED DIETS DISCUSSED AT THE APPG FOOD AND HEALTH — FEBRUARY 4TH 2020: PBHP UK are members of the All Party Parlimentary Group on Food and Health. It was a great pleasure to be able to present at a meeting dedicated to plant-based diets. I was joined by Prof Tim Key, Chief Investigator of the EPIC Oxford Study. The meeting was chaired by Baroness Anne Jenkins and kicked off well when she told the audience she had just watched the movie The Game Changers and along with her husband had started to transition to a plant-based diet! You can read about the meeting here and listen to my video summary of the meeting here.

NEW TEAM MEMBERS: We have taken on 4 wonderful new team members. Sheetal Kanwar is our pharmacist representative, Linda H and Linda K our student representatives and Dr Laura Freeman who is working on a top secret project due to launch this month!

OUR AMBASSADORS: We are exciting to welcome four ambassadors to the team. They are all promoting plant-based diets in their own work and lives and our supporting us to reacher a wider audience. You can read about them here.

GP STUDY DAY AT KING’S COLLEGE HOSPITAL ON PLANT-BASED DIETS AND LIFESTYLE MEDICINE — MARCH 5th 2020: This was our last live event prior to the pandemic lockdowns. It brought together over 80 GPs from the local area (and further afield) to an afternoon dedicated to discussing the impact of lifestyle behaviours on the risk of chronic disease. Once again, PBHP UK members contributed to a packed programme with Dr Nitu Bajekal speaking on menopause, Dr Rajiv Bajekal on bone health, Leila Dehghan on weight management, Dr Nesan Shanmugam on cardiovascular health and myself on cancer. There was excellent engagement and feedback. As with all the events we organise, GPs were treated to a fully plant-based lunch. We only had one person complain that they wanted ‘normal milk’!

FORTNIGHTLY WEBINAR PROGRAMME LAUNCHED APRIL 2020: The pandemic took grip in March and all our live events for the year were cancelled. This provided us with the opportunity to move our education programme online and broaden our reach. We were fortunate to receive funding from ProVeg and support from Oatly, Vegan Fitness and a private donation to launch our free, live webinar programme. Organised and hosted by nutritionist Rohini Bajekal, it has been a great success. We have held 19 webinars since April and reached over 5000 participants. On average, 60% of attendees were healthcare professionals and 95% voted that they found the webinar they attended Very Helpful or Extremely Helpful. On average 30% did not currently identify as following a healthy plant-based diet (but some may have been vegan). For some webinars with more general themes, this number went up to 50%. We received a number of messages throughout the year from healthcare professionals saying they were inspired to try eating a plant-based diet or make a conscious effort to reduce their meat intake, based on what they had learnt. As the year progressed, participants increasingly came from a wide number of countries including Ireland, USA, Belgium, Canada, India, the UAE, Singapore, South Africa, Poland, Spain and Finland.

All our webinars are approved for 1 hour of CPD by the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine and more recently have been approved by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine CME Approval Committee as an eligible program for CME (CPD) credit toward the Maintenance of Certification for the International Diploma of Lifestyle Medicine.

PBHP UK MEMBERSHIP: Membership started in Janaury 2019. It’s main purpose is to grow a network of like-minded individuals who can together make a valuable contribution to education and advocacy on plant-based nutrition in the UK and abroad. Our membership is open to everyone, not just health professionals, because we recognise that everyone can play their part in this plant-based health movement. Of course, the membership fees help to run the organisation with all of the income going back into our activities and a significant proportion for running members events.

At the end of 2019 we had reached 200 members and now at the end of 2020 we have reached 600 members. Approximately two thirds are health professionals (with a few students) and a third are members of the public. This year has seen membership become truly international with members joining from Canada, USA, UAE, Singapore, Turkey, Austria, Germany and more.

This growth in membership has allowed us to deliver a number of member events run by our members, including three cooking socials, a yoga class and a monthly journal club.

We are exceedingly grateful and indebted to the wonderful support and expertise our members bring. Without their support our work would not be possible and certainly would not be so rewarding.

IN THE MEDIA: We have had a successful year in the media, both mainstream and vegan. This is due to our collaboration with Eden Green PR. We first worked together on the No Meat May campaign that resulted in an article in the Metro urging the public to adopt a plant-based diet to help prevent future pandemics. We subsequently wrote an open letter to NHS leaders and the UK Government on World Nutrition Day 28th May 2020 urging a rapid transition to a health plant-based food system following the devastating consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our letter particularly focusses on the burden of chronic disease caused by unhealthy diets, which has also led to an increased risk of death from COVID-19. You can listen to our video letter and read the full letter and responses received.

We teamed up with the World Plant Milk Day campaign to highlight the need to transition away from cow’s dairy given that it has no role in health promotion and can in fact cause harm and of course is contributing to the climate crisis. Our story was covered in the Times and led to a backlash from some medical professionals, including Dr Hilary Jones. Read more about this and our response here. PBHP UK member Dr Sunni Patel and I were also included in an ITV series on the rise of plant-based milks.

We have also been interviewed for articles on lifestyle medicine for the Mirror and plant-based diets and weight loss for BBC food. All our media coverage can be found here.

21 DAY PLANT-BASED HEALTH CHALLENGE: On World Vegetarian Day October 1st 2020, we launched our very own 21 day plant-based health challenge. This was down to the hard work of Leila Dehghan and generous funding from VegFund. This free resource delivers 21 daily emails with information on plant-based diets, menu suggestions, videos on common nutrition questions and a free recipe book. The recipes are truly international covering all common traditional cuisuines. We are exceedingly grateful to all our collaborators including Tomi Makanjuola, Rohini Bajekal, Jay Cox, Kate Dunbar and Nikas Kitchen. To date we have had over 900 people sign up, two-thirds of whom are non-vegan.

FACTSHEETS: This year we have added a number of excellent factsheets. This is down to the hard work of our patient advocate and graphic designer Kate Dunbar and a number of PBHP UK members. Highlights include, but are not exclusively, factsheets on pregnancy and feeding vegan children by Dr Miriam Martinez-Biarge, vitamin D for vegans by Sheetal Kanwar, 10 tips for reducing bloating by Rohini Bajekal, coeliac disease and irritable bowel syndrome by Rosie Martin RD, the vegan FODMAP diet by Despina Marselou RD, portion size guide by Leila Dehghan, optimising fertility by Lisa Simon RD and coronary heart disease by Dr Noel Young. You can access all the factsheets for free here.

WEEKLY NEWS UPDATES AND ARTICLES: I continue to provide a weekly round up of the plant-based nutrition news, which I started in Sept 2019. The aim is to keep you updated on the scientific literature so you don’t have to search through the journals yourself. This is first shared on medium.com and social media on a Sunday, and then shortly after added to the website here. We have also added a number of useful articles to the website including, plant-based meat alternatives by Lisa Simon RD, vegan diets and bone fractures and how to stock your vegan pantry by Leila Dehghan. Our growing list of articles can be found here.

SUPPORTING VEGFEST UK: We have continued to support VegFest UK whose events have moved online. Leila Dehghan organised and hosted two panel discussions, which included a number of our PBHP UK members. The first at Summerfest on 15th August on the topic of ‘Health and Wellbeing in the time of Corona’. This included health professionals working on the COVID-19 front line and covered a number of healthy lifestyle habits from diet, exercise, to stress management, that could help us to stay healthy during and the pandemic and beyond. The second was on November 14th and featured PBHP UK dietitians and nutritionists with a discussion on ‘How To Eat For Optimal Health’. We had great engagement and even audience competitions.

CAMPAIGNS: We have supported a number of campaigns this year. Rohini Bajekal gave a speech on behalf of PBHP UK at this years Animal Rebellion actions in October. We support their demand that the UK should urgently transition to a plant-based food system for humans, planet and the animals. Read and listen to the speech here.

We have also joined forces with a coalition of women leaders who are urging Vice-President-elect Kamala Harris and the incoming administration to transition to a plant-based economy. Read more here.

IN THE MOVIES: PBHP UK members were pleased to be featured in this years movie VEGAN 2020 by Plant Based News. Member Nitu Bajekal, ambassador Dr Chidi Nwagba and I all delivered sound bites in this film that documents the achievements and challeneges of the global vegan movement in 2020.

AWARDS: We are thrilled and honoured to have voted the Best Vegan Initiative at this years’ VegFest UK awards. We have been great supporters and admirers of the work of VegFest UK and it is a privilege to be recognised for our work in the plant-based movement. Thank you to all of you who voted for us.

INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCES: The UK was well represented by PBHP UK at international conferences this year, albeit online. Dr Gemma Newman spoke at the European VegMed conference, Dr Alan Desmond spoke at PCRMs annual conference and again at the Plantrician Project annual conference along with myself.

BOOKS BY OUR TEAM MEMBERS: We are excited to support our two ambassadors Dr Gemma Newman and Dr Alan Desmond who have both written books supporting plant-based diets for optimal health and wellbeing. They are due to be released on January 7th and are excellent, so be sure to order your copy now. In addition, our International Advisory Board Member, Brenda Davis RD along with her coauthor Dr Reshma Shah, have written the book Nourish. It is a fantastic book to help you and your family thrive on a healthy plant-based diet.

WHATS IN STORE FOR 2021? Our ambition is to become the largest membership healthcare organsition in the UK. We are off to a good start with 2021 designated the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables by the UN General Assembley, a ‘unique opportunity to raise awareness on the important role of fruits and vegetables in nutrition, food security and human and planetary health. It also aims to reduce food loss and waste and promote sustainability and safety of the fruits and vegetables value chain’. We plan to expand on our current work. Webinars will continue with a great line up for January and beyond. We will be contributing to and supporting VegFest UK events. We are also writing a edited text book on plant-based nutrition. New student team members Linda Karlberg and Linda Hamaza will work on student engagement. Sheetal Kawar our pharmacy representative will work on building a strong network of pharmacists. Dr Hayley Tait will work on making plant-based cooking accessible to health professionals and medical students so they can better support their patients. Dr Gemma Newman and I will be presenting at VegMed 2021 and Dr Alan Desomond and I will be presenting at the International Conference on Nutrition in Medicine organised by PCRM. We are looking forward to support our ambassador Kate Strong in her attempt to break a world record on a static bike on January 7th 2021. Do join the live stream and help Kate achieve this amazing goal. We will continue to film our Documentary, spearheaded by filmmaker Jay Cox. We will be supporting the Scrap Factory Farming legal challenge.

A MASSIVE THANK YOU TO ALL OUR SUPPORTERS: We work with some wonderful people, without whom our work would not be possible. Thank you to PBHP UK member Roger Phillips for editing all our webinars free of charge. Carmen, Carol and Rob from Mad Ideas who run our website. Eden Green PR who amplify our message. Jane Land and Matthew Glover who support our projects. VegFund and ProVeg for their grants. We are also launching something BIG in January 2021, so watch this space……

Of course, a big thank you to all our PBHP UK members, without whom this work would not be possible.

If you want to support our work, please follow ‘plant-based health professionals UK’ on Instagram @plantbasedhealthprofessionals and facebook. You can support our work by joining as a member or making a donation via the website.

A look back at 2019 for Plant-based Health Professionals UK

This is our second full year as a non-profit, volunteer-run organisation, having been founded in October 2017. You can read about our first year here. 2019 has been busy and rewarding and we hope you will join us in building on this work in 2020.

Membership

The year started with the launch of our membership programme. Membership is open to all — health professionals and non-health professionals alike — and in this first year we have attracted just over 200 members. Our members include doctors, vets, nurses, pharmacists, psychologists and ‘patients’ who have healed chronic illness using a dietary approach. An active membership is going to be key to sharing our mission. So far, members have received 3 extensive newsletters (designed by our patient advocate Kate Dunbar), reduced price tickets to events, 2 competition giveaways of plant-based cookbooks, webinars followed by Q&A and networking within the closed facebook group.

Members newsletter designed by Kate Dunbar

Conferences and events

We have a held a number of conferences and events throughout 2019 for both health professionals and the general public.

Website

The year started with a trip to Dublin where Dr Alan Desmond and I had the pleasure of representing PBHP UK at the first Irish conference “Food as Medicine — an evidence based introduction to plant based nutrition” on 9th March at the Mater Hospital. The sold out event was organised by the newly formed group ‘Plant-based doctors Ireland’ and attracted mainly general practioners to the 150 capacity venue. The day covered the evidence for plant-based diets for both human and planetary health.

Speakers at Brighton VegFest March 2019

Our first event for the general public took place at Brighton VegFest in March where we hosted 2 days of talks on healthy plant-based diets. We covered an array of topics from the basics of meeting nutrient requirements to the impact of diet on mental health, bone health, cancer risk and why plant-based diets are also the most sustainable for planetary health. We were even able to cover the topic of vegan diets for cats and dogs!

Warrington conference April 2019. Fiona Oakes, Shireen Kassam, Marta Lewandowska, Lucy Russell

Our first conference of the year for health professionals was held in Warrington, Cheshire on April 13th. We welcomed 120 attendees for a day full of education and networking. Two-thirds of the audience were health professionals with the remainder being interested members of the public. Topics covered included vegan diets for pregnancy and children, bone health, fatty liver disease and non-coeliac gluten sensitivity. A highlight was hearing from Fiona Oakes, a Guinness World record holding Marathon and ultra- Marathon runner who has been vegan since the age of 6 years. At least 85% of attendees rated the conference as useful or very useful for their clinical practice. All our health professional conferences are CPD accredited and therefore can contribute to individuals’ portfolios and appraisals.

The Plant Based Canada team

We had the privilege of collaborating with Plant-based Canada, co-founded by my sister, Dr Zahra Kassam and her friend and colleague Michelle Fedele. Plant-based Canada is a non profit organisation dedicated to the well-being of humans, the environment and all its life forms. Together we organised the first conference on plant-based nutrition to be held in Canada bringing together speakers from across the country who have implemented plant-based nutrition into their clinical practice. This was made possible through a generous grant from Proveg. The keynote lecture was delivered by Dr David Jenkins who has made major contributions to nutritional science throughout his long career, including the development of the glycaemic index, the Portfolio diet for hypercholesterolaemia and the Eco-Atkins diet. Dr Jenkins himself has been vegan for many years. We also heard from Dr Shane Williams, a cardiologist who uses food as medicine and has been trained by some of the greats in the plant-based nutrition field. Drs Arjun and Shobha Rayapudi came all the way from St John’s in Newfoundland to talk about their non-profit organisation Gift of Health, which is changing the lives of local residents through the power of plant-based nutrition. You can check out the other amazing Canadian’s promoting plant-based nutrition here.

Speakers at the Canadian Plant-Based Nutrition Conference June 2019

Thank you to Jay Cox from Fizzeek media.

Back in London on June 30th we brought together both health professionals and the general public for an afternoon with Dr Kim Williams, Past President of the American College of Cardiologists, the Happy Pear and Bosh!. For the second year in a row, Dr Williams gave an excellent talk on the link between diet and cardiovascular disease. He explained how plant-based diets are now a recognised and evidence-based treatment for the prevention of cardiovascular disease and included as part of the 2019 AHA/ACC guidelines. We heard first hand evidence from the Happy Pear about their work in the community and through online education on the power of plant-based diets to help people regain their health. We finished the afternoon with a panel discussion led by Dr Alan Desmond on how a plant-based diet could transform our healthcare system and the health of the population.

The highlight of our year was most certainly the VegMed conference held in London on October 12th/13th. This was our first opportunity to hold a truly international conference, made possible through our partnership with ProVeg. We used their already successful VegMed format of a day for health professionals and a day for the general public. Tickets sold out fast with 350 attendees on each day. We had a truly international line up of speakers and attendees. I personally met attendees from all over Europe but also as far a field as Chile, Barbados and Russia. Our international speakers need no introduction and included Dr Neal Barnard, Dr Michael Greger, Brenda Davis RD and Dr Michael Klaper. Plant-based health professionals from the UK were honoured to share a stage with pioneers of the plant-based nutrition movement. Following the conference Brenda Davis kindly agreed to support PBHP UK as an international advisory board member.

VegFest London. Leila Dehghan, Iida van der Byl-Knoefel and Miriam Martinez Biarge at the PBHP UK stall. Standing room only at the talk by Dr Gemma Newman.

VegFest London also took place in October where we once again organised and hosted 2 days of talks related to healthy plant-based diets aimed at the general public. Here we covered the impact of diet on heart disease, type 2 diabetes, mental health, pain and migraine. We also had a stall highlighting our working and were able to meet many of our supporters and make new friends too.

Brenda Davis RD doing a handstand age 60! Dr Esselstyn, Shireen Kassam, Benda Davis. Ann Esselstyn.

I had the privilege of representing PBHP UK at Iceland’s first conference on plant-based nutrition and health where I spoke about the impact of diet and lifestyle on cancer prevention. It attracted 300 attendees and featured speakers with celebrity status (not me!). Dr Esselstyn and his wife Ann talked about the effectiveness of a plant-based diet for the treatment cardiovascular disease and of the remarkable outcomes achieved in over 1000 patients treated on their nutrition programme since 1985. Brenda Davis RD became vegan over 30 years ago at a time when vegan diets were not accepted within the dietitic community. She has authored 10 books on vegan diet and health including the classic text ‘Becoming Vegan’.

Launch of first University-based course on plant-based nutrition

This year I launched the first UK university-based course on plant-based nutrition. This has been made possible through a collaboration with Winchester University and has involved several members of the PBHP UK team. We have put together a 6-week online course on all aspects of plant-based nutrition with the aim of empowering health professionals to incorporate plant-based nutrition into their clinical practice. The course has completed its first run with 50 students participating and will repeat every academic term. It has been accredited for CPD hours by the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

A new website

This year we launched our new website which is now truly an educational resource for members and non-members alike. It is full of webinars, articles, factsheets and much more. The most useful aspect has been an ever growing directory of plant-based health professionals practicing within the UK. Our most popular website download is the Plant-based Eatwell Guide, an adaptation of Public Health England’s dietary guideline, put together by team member Doug Bristor. An Iranian group has also translated the guide into Farsi! Thank you to Madideas for doing such a fabulous job on the website and for their ongoing support.

Funding and support

We have been fortunate to receive funding and support from a number of organisations this year. Lush, Oatly and Hammersmith Health Books have supported our conferences and events. Vegfund have provided us with funding for the development of the webinars and factsheets you will find on the website.

Collaborations

Lifeafterhummus.com

We are delighted to be collaborating with Lifeafterhummus, a community benefits society that teaches no oil whole food plant-based cooking in the community setting. Its founder, Farrah Rainfly, is a trained food for life instructor. We are partnering on a series of classes which feature a talk by a health professionals followed by a hands on cooking class for participants. It is a great way to bring together the science with the practical skills required to shift to a whole food plant-based diet.

A number of team members have partnered with the Happy Pear to bring together some new online courses. These include the Happy Gut Course featuring Dr Alan Desmond and Rosie Martin RD, the Happy Skin Course featuring Dr Gemma Newman and the latest addition, the Happy Shape Course with Dr Sue Kenneally and Rosie Martin RD. These courses all teach the science and the practical skills necessary to transition to a healthy plant-based diet.

Other achievements

Team members have published papers in peer-reviewed journals. Marta Lewandoska, Doug Bristor and I contributed a paper on diet and lymphoma for the first issue of the new journal — The International Journal of Disease Reversal and Prevention. This is a free journal dedicated to promoting health through diet and lifestyle and is free from industry and pharmaceutical influence. I am also on the editorial review board of the journal. Dr Alan Desmond co-authored a paper with researchers from PCRM in the journal Nutrients, highlighting a case of Crohn’s disease remission using a plant-based diet. Also in the journal Nutrients, Miriam Martinez-Biarge co-authored a paper on meal planning for vegan children and adolescents. We also contributed to an online campaign run by Media Planet and Global Cause highlighting plant-based alternatives and the reasons for adopting a plant-based diet

Things that have gone less well

Article

Not everything works out as planned. We had intended to a launch our first campaign ‘Give Bacon the Boot’ to get processed meat out of UK NHS hospitals. We completely underestimated the enormity of such a campaign and in reality it would need a person working full time on this to make any progress. Nonetheless, we have a website full of resources and an advert ready for when the time is right to make a full launch. Team member Leila Dehghan wrote an excellent article on why such a campaign is necessary. We even managed to feature in a rather poor quality tabloid newspaper article!

by Jay Cox of Fizzeek Media

Plans for 2020

Plans are taking shape. A priority will be to grow our membership and be able to offer more to our members. This will include regular members socials, discounted tickets to events. competition give aways, listing on our online directory and speakers bureau.

Leila Dehghan from the PBHP UK team has organised and is hosting the talks at Plant Powered Expo on February 1st. This event is aimed at those new to a plant-based lifestyle and therefore will focus on the basics of a healthy plant-based diet for adults, children and athletes and its impact on disease prevention. We will also have a stall and be joining up new members with some prize giveaways! This will be followed by our first members social.

We welcome Dr Michael Greger to King’s College Hospital on 29th April 2020. He will give a talk based on his new book ‘How not to Diet’ and will be doing a book signing.

Our main conference will be in London on May 16th 2020. More details to follow soon

We will have a focus on education for medical, nutrition and science students. This will kick off with an afternoon event on April 29th 2020 for students in London. We have linked up with Nutritank societies, lifestyle medicine societies and veggie/vegan societies within Universities.

We will also focus on GP education and we have our first event in collaboration with King’s College Hospital on March 5th 2020

So all in all it should be a busy 2020. I are immensely grateful to our advisory board, our members and supporters, without whom none of this work would be possible.

If you are not yet familiar with our work, do check out our website for educational resources and our YouTube channel where you can find recordings of most of our events. Most of our articles appear first on Medium

You can support us by becoming a member or by making a donation. All funds are used to provide education on whole food plant-based nutrition.

A very healthy and happy plant-based new year to you all.

Dr Shireen Kassam, December 2019

A look back at 2018 for plant-based health professionals UK

Plant-based health professionals UK (PBHP UK) was conceived in October 2017 at London Vegfest in a chance meeting between myself (Shireen Kassam) and Tom Hubbard, a GP based in Ireland. We realised we had a shared passion for promoting plant-based nutrition for the prevention and treatment of chronic disease but were yet to find a way to share this message with the wider medical community. So, we decided there and then to start an organisation and that we would launch by holding the first medical conference in the UK to focus on plant-based nutrition.

So, 2018 started off with planning and organising the conference. It led us to meet a number of inspiring health professionals already promoting plant-based nutrition in their own areas of practice. Without much effort at all, a whole programme of speakers was conceived. Initial worries about tickets sales soon disappeared when, through facebook advertising alone, the conference sold out 5 weeks before the date resulting in a long waiting list. The conference took place on March 23rd 2018 at King’s College Hospital, London and was a great success. It brought together health professionals and members of the general public who shared the same vision of harnessing the power of plant-based nutrition to prevent and reverse chronic disease. For many the conference validated their own diet choices. For others it gave them the confidence to go back into clinical practice and share this knowledge with patients and clients knowing there was genuine support in the UK. You can read more about the conference here.

Speakers at the medical conference on March 23rd 2018

Whole food plant-based lunch at the conference on March 23rd 2018

Whilst planning for the London conference the founder of Go Vegan Scotland, Barbara Bolton, reached out to us and asked if we would bring a similar conference to Glasgow. She was involved in organising the annual conference of the International Vegan Rights Alliance, so we agreed to have a simultaneous conference to facilitate networking and knowledge sharing. Our second conference was fixed before we had even held our first. It took place at Glasgow Royal Infirmary on June 30th 2018 and again was a sold out event.

Speakers at the Glasgow conference June 30th 2018

Whilst organising the two conferences, we heard through the plant-based community that Dr Kim Williams, past President of the American College of Cardiologists, long-term vegan and advocate for plant-based diets, was often willing to give a talk in London during the Wimbledon tennis tournament (he was a semi-professional player himself and still an avid follower of the game). So we reached out to him and he kindly agreed to give a talk in London on diet and cardiovascular disease. The best date turned out to be the day after the Glasgow conference, so there was a mad dash back to London in time to host Dr Williams at King’s College Hospital on 1st July 2018. We also invited Dr Dagfinn Aune, from Imperial College London, to talk on diet and health. He has authored some of the seminal papers in the field, demonstrating without a doubt that a diet centred around whole plant-foods is associated with optimal health and longevity. Another great event with now familiar faces in the audience. It was a rare opportunity to meet and learn from a plant-based cardiologist as we are yet to identify one of this elusive breed in the UK!

Dr Kim Williams and Dr Shireen Kassam July 1st 2018

Dr Dagfinn Aune and Dr Shireen Kassam July 1st 2018

With the launch events over and confidence that there was a demand for education in the field of plant-based nutrition in the UK, we were ready to take the next steps. However, it became clear that Tom and I had a different vision for the organisation and agreed to go our separate ways. We fully acknowledge that without each other neither of us would have started on our plant-based journey and are immensely grateful for our chance meeting in 2017. Tom has gone on to found a similar organisation with his colleagues in Ireland and I look forward to collaborating with them in the future.

So I began putting a team together. I didn’t have to seek anyone out as such. Our paths crossed for different reasons and the team grew organically. There are now 12 advisory board members of PBHP UK, all dedicating time and expertise for free. We have a shared mission to educate health professionals and the general public on healthy plant-based nutrition and facilitate its use within clinical practice. It is a multi-professional group with doctor, nursing, dietician and patient representation. You can find out more about the team here. They have helped with so many things this year, including our amazing new logo (Kate Dundar), the website (Marta Lewandowska), the fact sheets (Doug Bristor, Gemma Newman, Alan Desmond) and much much more. We are also grateful to our two international advisory board members Dr Kim Williams and Dr David Jenkins. They are both pioneers in the field of plant-based nutrition and their expertise is invaluable. Dr Kim Williams was the first vegan President of the American College of Cardiologists. Dr David Jenkins invented the glycaemic index and the portfolio diet.

Our new logo designed by Kate Dunbar

My initial aims were to forge relationships with organisations that share our mission. I wanted to gain credibility for PBHP UK but also believe that we cannot just work in silos. We need to collaborate and share knowledge and expertise. This will help to spread the plant-based message more widely and quickly.

To this end, we have been recognised as an aligned member organisation of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine, who are part of the lifestyle medicine global alliance founded by the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. The lifestyle medicine movement is now growing, as health professionals recognise the impact of lifestyle on health and disease and its role in disease prevention. Nutrition is just one part of lifestyle medicine, which also includes physical exercise, stress management, sleep, avoid of toxic substances including tobacco and alcohol and loving relationships. However, we believe that nutrition is the most important part of lifestyle medicine creating the foundation for true health.

We are delighted to have achieved international recognition by being accepted as a member organisation of the True Health Initiative (THI). Founded by Dr David Katz, an internationally renowned nutrition scientist and preventative medicine physician, the THI is ‘a global movement to make the fundamental truths about healthy, sustainable living and eating common knowledge’. It promotes the six core principles of lifestyle medicine in order to ‘add years to life and life to years’.

Six core principles of lifestyle medicine as defined by the True Health Initiative

Our Australian plant-based health professional counterparts have founded a Charity called Doctors for Nutrition. We are delighted to be collaborating with them and I am one of their international advisory board members.

To gain recognition for providing high quality education, I wanted PBHP UK to work with a University. By pure chance and good fortune, I was put in touch with the Vice Chancellor of Winchester University, Professor Joy Carter. She is vegan and promotes core values at Winchester University that I can align with; ‘Compassion, Individuals Matter and Spirituality’. I met with her and a number of her fellow vegan staff members, and suggested that Winchester University consider offering a course on plant-based nutrition. Within a few weeks I had received a formal letter of appointment to the University and am now working one day a week on developing such a course, which, with the help of my plant-based friends and colleagues will hopefully go live in 2019.

Another partnership that has been forged is with Proveg International. In collaboration with Charité Medical University, the Immanuel Hospital Group, Stiftung Reformhaus-Fachakademie and the German Vegetarian Union (ProVeg Deutschland e.V.), Proveg has been holding the VegMed medical conference on plant-based nutrition in Berlin since 2012. Together, we are bringing the VegMed conference to London on 12th and 13th October 2019. This will be the first international plant-based nutrition conference to be held in the UK. Confirmed international speakers include Dr Neal Barnard, Founder and President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and Dr Michael Klaper, a renowned plant-based Doctor and educator. Members of the PBHP UK team will also be speaking giving the conference a UK focus. More information and tickets can be found here.

The second half of 2018 gave us the opportunity to host Dr Joel Fuhrman. A pioneer of lifestyle medicine who developed the Nutritarian diet, a diet centred around whole plant foods, low in calories yet high in micronutrients. He has helped thousands of people reverse chronic disease and regain their health. Anyone that knows of Dr Furhman, will know that he has a unique style and can at times be controversial. This can be seen in some of his classic quotes!

Dr Joel Fuhrman in London September 27th 2018

Another partnership has been to team up with Vegfest UK to bring high quality, evidence-based talks on plant-based nutrition to the Vegfest events. PBHP UK are delighted to be organising the health section of Brighton Vegfest on March 23rd/24th. We will cover all aspects of plant-based nutrition from the basics on how to ensure a plant-based diet is nutritionally complete through to its role in preventing and reversing various chronic diseases. These events attracts vegans and non-vegans alike and will give us the opportunity to provide education in an accessible and friendly environment.

We are excited to have teamed up Jay Cox from Fizzeek Media. Jay transitioned to a whole food plant based diet after completing treatment for cancer. He is passionate about promoting plant-based nutrition and it’s just our good fortune that he is also an award winning film maker (in his spare time). We have committed to making the equivalent of ‘Forks over Knives’ for the UK. We will be needing lots of help!

So how is 2019 shaping up for PBHP UK? It is already looking like a busy year. Here are some of things you should look out for and hopefully get involved with:

1. We are launching membership. This will bring together a community of health professionals and interested members of the general public in the promotion of plant-based nutrition. There is definitely strength in numbers. Members will be able to get involved with our work, receive up to date plant-based nutrition scientific and clinical information, reduced price tickets to some events, access to PBHP UK resources and expertise and our support. So, please join today.
2. March 23rd/24th Brighton Vegfest. PBHP UK hosting the health talks. Get your tickets here.
3. April 13th 2019, Warrington, is our next medical conference. More information and tickets here.
4. June 1st 2019, Canadian Health and Nutrition conference, in Toronto. This is in collaboration with my sister, Dr Zahra Kassam, a radiation oncologist in Toronto. It will bring together Canadian plant-based health professionals and the Canadian Academy of Lifestyle Medicine.
5. June 30th 2019, London. Hosting Dr Kim Williams. More details to follow soon.
6. October 12/13th 2019. Vegmed, London. More information and tickets here.
7. We will be launching a regular newsletter.
8. Sharing more patient stories about the power of plant-based nutrition.
9. We are planning a health-related campaign so watch this space…..
10. Making a start on our plant-based documentary.

We have many thank you’s to make to those that have supported our work. Thank you to all my plant-based friends and colleagues that contributed to our conferences and events both as speakers and attendees. A big thank you to Plant Based News for promoting our events and sharing our stories. Thank you to Roger and Carmela for videoing many of our events for free and asking for nothing in return.

Happy new year to you all and I hope you continue to join us on this plant-based journey

Shireen Kassam

January 2019