Standing On The Plant-Based Shoulders of Dr. John McDougall
- mylifeplantbased
- Jul 16, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 8, 2024
Hello, I am Corinne Brown. Welcome to My Life Plant Based where I share my journey to remedy cancer and my other diet-related chronic diseases.
While preparing to write this – my first blog, the plant-based community lost Dr. John McDougall. He was a board-certified internist and a passionate, modern pioneer of the concept of using plant-based food as medicine. He and his beloved wife, Mary, a retired nurse, co-authored the 2012 bestseller - The Starch Solution: Eat the Foods You Love, Regain Your Health, and Lose the Weight for Good! I first knew of Dr. McDougall in the late 1980s when I heard his radio show during the years I lived in California. Although I heeded his advice to eat fruits and vegetables, I – who was raised on a chicken farm - ignored his warning not to consume animal-based food and processed products. As a result, in my
forties, I developed arthritis and high blood pressure. By the time I reached my fifties, I had other diet-related chronic diseases, including cancer.
Two years into my cancer journey, I discovered Chef AJ’s YouTube channel where I was reintroduced to her mentor, Dr. McDougall. This time I heeded his message. I was then able to reject chemotherapy and other medications while I used a Starch-Powered Plant-Based diet to reverse my cancer and other chronic diseases.
On Sunday nights, I regularly watched Dr. McDougall Health and Medical Center YouTube channel where John and Mary discussed health issues with their daughter, Dr. Heather McDougall. I also appreciated his 2–3+ hour discussions on Chef AJ’s YouTube channel where the first Monday of the month was known as McDougall Mondays. It is, therefore, fitting that my first blog is a partial celebration of his life well–lived in the service of good health and exposing the fundamental truth about conventional medicine.
I have great respect for McDougall because he said:
I have often been asked, "You are a doctor, so why do you speak against the practices of fellow physicians?" The answer is simple. I never took an oath to protect the financial interest of the medical industry. I did, however, take an oath to care for the sick, and to try to keep them from harm and injustice, and to never give a deadly drug or procedure.
John A. McDougall, M.D.
The Starch Solution p xix-xx
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This celebration of Dr. McDougall’s life is particularly necessary in order to counter remarks by some animal-based food advocates who seem pleased his life ended at age 77. It appears as if they think he would have lived much longer on an animal-based diet.
Since, I’m not a scientist or doctor, I’m not going down that rabbit hole. However, I will say that my use of a Whole Food Starch-Centered Plant-Based diet is reversing my
chronic diseases. I have no illusions that that means I will live forever since all of us will die. Instead, I expect my plant-based diet to reduce the possibility I will be debilitated or limited by chronic diseases. And that also appeared to have been the goal for Dr. McDougall.
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Starches provide energy and an abundance of nutrients without being stored visibly as fat... They fuel us with the proteins, essential fats, vitamins, and minerals that make our bodies run like the efficient machines they were meant to be… Some starches like potatoes and sweet potatoes are complete foods… Their naturally great taste and nourishing calories and the good feeling they give us during and after eating them are the reasons we refer to bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, corn, and beans as “comfort foods.”
John McDougall, M.D.
The Starch Solution, p. 14-15.
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At about age 70, McDougall fell and sustained injuries, which might not have been able to remedy with diet. The fact he lived another 7 years - is remarkable. In fact, the length of his lifespan is particularly amazing considering he suffered an embolic stroke when he was age 18 and eating an animal-based diet. Although he was physically damaged, and limped, he went on to live another 59 years during which his physical activities included windsurfing.
His hero was the nutritionist Nathan Pritikin, who asserted that a low-fat plant-based diet and exercise could prevent heart disease. McDougall also admired Roy Swank who asserted that Multiple Sclerosis could be remedied with an oil-free plant-based diet.
Unlike Dr. McDougall’s low-fat diet, my plant-based diet includes some plant-based fat because I love nuts and seeds, specifically almonds, cashews, walnuts and flaxseeds. Since I have multiple myeloma – cancer of the bone marrow, which in the category of leukemia and lymphoma – I consume almonds because it contains calcium, potassium, protein and other nutrients that support bone health. In other words, McDougall’s diet can be modified to suit the needs of a person’s health. McDougall’s experience as a young patient in a hospital inspired him to be a doctor. His medical practice afforded him insights as to how one could live a life free of diet-related chronic diseases that afflict modern society.
One of the reasons Dr. McDougall was the best doctor in the world was He cured more patients than any other doctor… with his videos, his books…HE PUT MORE TIME INTO EDUCATING PATIENTS…and to empower them so they get long term great results. Not just great results initially. He gave people a systematic, rational way to understand health.
Peter Rogers, M.D.
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As it was, McDougall lived 59 years after his stroke. They were very prolific years. So, his family and admirers have so much for which to be thankful. Indeed, there are people I knew who would have loved to live to age 77. Instead, they died far too young of diet-related chronic diseases. A few years before I heard McDougall’s radio show, my very beloved Aunt Helen died shortly after she retired from teaching. She had lots of fruits and vegetables on her property in addition to several chickens and pigs, which she fattened for consumption. She also made dairy ice-cream. In her mid-60s, she had a series of strokes and died shortly thereafter. I am also personally familiar with other people who continued to eat a diet of animal-based and processed foods after they had a stroke. They then had a very debilitating life before they died. That, however, was not the case for Dr. John McDougall who recognized that “the body never stopped healing because it never stops trying to live.” And it is capable of using plant-based food as medicine. He had a remarkable memory and great cognitive skills, which were still evident in the video he did with Mary and Heather a few days before he died. When my Aunt Helen was alive, I wish I knew and fully understood what I now know about plant-based food as medicine. My aunt lived on the outskirts of a modernizing small village in Jamaica. Her mother - my maternal grandmother - lived a simple, humble life in the remote hills where she had a plant-strong diet that made use of herbs and spices. Something about that plant-strong lifestyle was very healthy considering that when my grandmother was in her 80s, she was healthy and very active; and she still had jet black hair and beautiful black skin. I had an animal-based dietary lifestyle when I lived in the United States. There, I experienced my first health crises – high blood pressure, then other chronic diseases. Although I was covered by my employer’s health insurance, it was inadequate. So, I was financially devastated by my ailments. I returned to Ontario, Canada, where I had previously lived with my parents and siblings when we left
Jamaica. While working in Toronto, I developed other chronic diseases, including cancer. Although I now benefited from Canada’s free health care, it only managed my chronic diseases instead of remedying them.
I was therefore fortunate to discover Chef AJ’s YouTube channel where I was reintroduced to Dr. John McDougall. He considered himself the luckiest doctor in the world because his patients got well when they followed his Starched-centered Plant-Based diet. McDougall asserted that many chronic diseases were related to diet, and therefore could be remedied by a proper diet. But he never said people would live forever if they eat a plant-based diet.
I was just happy when he cited peer-reviewed journal articles as well as other evidence that a plant-based diet could remedy arthritis and many cancers.
I considered McDougall’s advice and that of other plant-based doctors as I crafted a Salt, Oil and refined Sugar-Free Whole Food Plant-Exclusive dietary and Fasting lifestyle that reversed my angina, arthritis, high blood pressure, cholesterol, cancer, diabetes, diverticulitis, intestinal polyps, heart disease, kidney stones, gall stones and non-alcoholic fatty liver. I shared my plant-based knowledge with family, friends and members of my cancer support groups. However, many continued to eat the toxic Standard North American diet that is animal-based and loaded with junk and processed foods. The result is evident with their deteriorating health and/or diet-related deaths.
I want these unnecessary diet-related tragedies to stop for myself and others.
My Life Plant Based is a tool in that effort. Another tool is my upcoming memoir about my health journey. It is titled Arthritis! Cancer! Diabetes! Heart Disease! Reversed with A Whole Food Plant-Exclusive Diet: A Patient’s Story.
To learn more about Dr. McDougall and his work you can watch the following tributes and reviews of his book.
Peter Rogers MD in-depth review of The Starch Solution.
Tribute to McDougall Jeannette’s Essence
Spud Fit – In honour of Dr. John McDougall – my thoughts and Stories
Chef AJ and Dr. Niki Davis Loving Memory of Dr. John McDougall
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