Video

Deborah Kesten
More From This Member
Send Message

Expert Bio Her Writer

VIDEO: Wellness Coach Deborah Kesten - Weight And Heart Disease, How Did You Become Interested In These?

Wellness Coach Deborah Kesten shares how she became interested in weight management and heart disease and how they relate to women.

Deborah Kesten:
I was the nutritionist on Dean Ornish’s first clinical trial for reversing heart disease and he showed that you could actually halt and reverse heart disease through lifestyle changes alone, without drugs or surgery. And his program specifically includes four components: a no-fat added plant-based diet, group support, social support, and exercise and stress management, and in his case, stress management is yoga and meditation.

And Larry and I who is Larry Scherwitz, my husband, Dr. Larry Scherwitz was Dr. Ornish’s Director of Research for more than 15 years, so Larry and I moved to Europe and replicated his research. And so many women whom we worked with, patients came up to me with tears in their eyes telling me, ”I thought I was feeding my family optimally, my husband well, thought I was helping.” And they were doing what the best they could do. How could anybody be a researcher, how could everybody be a scientist or doctor? It just can’t be.

And so, it really went to my heart and I kept thinking about this over the year, and as time progressed we returned to the States, and here is what really got me focused on this. Both of my parents died of heart disease and mother died of congestive heart failure and my father died of a heart attack.

About Deborah Kesten, M.P.H.:
Deborah Kesten, M.P.H., is an international nutrition and lifestyle researcher and educator, with a specialty in preventing and reversing obesity and heart disease. She was the nutritionist on Dr. Dean Ornish’s first clinical trial for reversing heart disease through lifestyle changes, and Director of Nutrition on similar research at cardiovascular clinics in Europe. More recently, she has created the pioneering Enlightened Diet, a “whole person” optimal eating and weight loss program, the results of which were published in the peer-reviewed medical journal Explore: The Journal of Science and Healing. With more than 200 published health articles, she is the award-winning author of The Enlightened Diet, Feeding the Body, Nourishing the Soul and The Healing Secrets of Food, a comprehensive, evidence-based nutrition program about the power of food to heal physically, emotionally, spiritually, and socially.

Visit Deborah Kesten at her website