Nutritional Aspects of Plant-Based Meat – Roberta Alessandrini, PhD | PAN International

This webinar was presented at the Food & Bio Global Summit 2023. in the session “Positive Plant-Based Nutrition”.

The speaker, Roberta Alessandrini, PhD, is a Medical Content Creator at PAN International. She is a nutrition scientist strongly interested in promoting plant-based diets as a way to improve our health, spare animals’ lives and reduce the devastating impacts of climate change. Roberta’s professional experience includes health policy, academia, NGOs and community nutrition. She also holds the position of Honorary Research Fellow at Queen Mary University of London.

Plant-Based Diets in Autoimmune and Rheumatic Diseases – VegMed London 2023

Wendy Walrabenstein, RD and Dr. Carlijn Wagenaar from the Netherlands are two pioneers in the field of plant-based nutrition. In this session, recorded live at VegMed London 2023, they showcase new data from their groundbreaking research on treating people who are living with rheumatoid arthritis and osteoarthritis with a plant-based lifestyle approach. This session also discusses the work of the Overcoming MS programme, and their longstanding dietary approach to supporting people living with MS. This includes an inspiring patient story from someone who is successfully managing their multiple sclerosis using this lifestyle.

Wendy and Carlijn are also the Treasurer and Vice Chair, respectively, of the PAN national office in the Netherlands. Find out more on the PAN Nederland website (in Dutch): www.pan-nl.org

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PAN Israel: Culinary Medicine – A Recipe for an Effective Nutritional Change

We invite you to get to know a new field in the world of medicine, which deals with the importance of home cooking and its contribution to our health – culinary medicine. In the lecture Dr. Rani Polak talks, among other things, about implementing healthy cooking at home, adapting the kitchen for healthy cooking and creating a healthy menu. He also discusses which products to buy, exploring the example of legumes and more.

Dr. Rani Polak is the founding director of both the Culinary Healthcare Education Fundamentals (CHEF) Coaching program at the Institute of Lifestyle Medicine, Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Boston, USA and the Center of Lifestyle Medicine at Sheba Medical Center, Tel Aviv, Israel. Dr. Polak’s focus, along with clinical care, is on clinical and translational research relating to the Culinary Coaching method which combines culinary training with health coaching principles. Dr. Polak is the PI of the Culinary CoRe (Culinary Coaching Research) group, which aims to expand culinary coaching as an effective, scalable telemedicine method to improve nutrition. He is also a course director of a medical education program at Harvard Medical School that disseminates culinary coaching to hundreds of clinicians worldwide.

PAN Israel: Preventive Nutrition for Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease

The key factor in preventing and treating NAFLD is a holistic lifestyle modification approach, encompassing a diet based on healthy eating patterns of unprocessed foods, exercise, and balanced drinking and smoking habits. The Mediterranean diet and other healthy dietary patterns can reduce liver fat and may be related to lower disease progression. The growing global consumption of ultra-processed foods, which is the polar opposite of the Mediterranean diet and its concept of home-based cooking, poses a significant challenge in preventing NAFLD and probably hepatocellular carcinoma. This talk provides insights into tailoring the diet to a patient’s personal preferences, and how changing dietary composition and quality may offer a feasible alternative to prevent and treat NAFLD, beyond weight reduction.

Prof. Zelber-Sagi is a clinical dietitian, epidemiologist and researcher in nutritional and lifestyle epidemiology, chronic diseases related to lifestyle, and related public health aspects. Currently, she is a full Professor and Head of the School of Public Health, Faculty of Social Welfare and Health Sciences, at the University of Haifa. She has published around 150 scientific publications, mostly dealing with lifestyle and liver disease and other chronic diseases, including nutrition, physical activity, smoking, alcohol and policy recommendations.

PAN Switzerland: Was is(s)t das Mikrobiom?

Darm gut alles gut?

In diesem Webinar von PAN Switzerland wurde diese Frage in drei 20-minütigen Vorträgen aus unterschiedlichen Blickwinkeln beleuchtet: Im ersten Teil präsentierte Dr. Philipp Busche, als Leitender Arzt des Zentrums für Integrative Gastroenterologie, wie sich das Mikrobiom in den ersten 1000 Lebenstagen entwickelt und welche gesundheitlichen Auswirkungen dies auf das Erwachsenenalter hat.
Anna Maria Bramböck, Ernährungsberaterin mit Schwerpunkt Mikrobiom sowie Prä- und Probiotika, ging im zweiten Teil auf den Einfluss unserer Ernährung auf das Darmmikrobiom ein. Abschliessend griffen Prof. Lia Bally und Prof. Ziad Al Nabhani nochmals auf, wie das Mikrobiom mit dem Entstehen von metabolischen Erkrankungen zusammenhängt. 

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PAN South Africa: Improving diabetic outcomes using whole food plant-based nutrition in SA

A few days after World Diabetes Day 2022, PAN South Africa hosted a 75-min side event at the Food4Climate pavilion at COP27 in Egypt. They presented their findings of the first-ever implementation study on whole food plant-based nutrition for diabetes in the South African context. The research is in the form of a case study on the pilot program created by UBUNTU Wellness Institute, a 21-day Diabetes Reversal Challenge launched in early 2021.

PAN South Africa has gathered clinical information and interviewed ten type 2 diabetics who took the challenge, plus four physicians who monitored their progress. While sorting through the information, we continuously asked the question; how can a plant-based nutrition intervention be implemented in South Africa? Our findings are sorted into a socioecological model highlighting key health outcomes, interpersonal factors, the broader South African context, and integrations within the public health system. Our findings culminate into recommendations for health science researchers, implementation teams, and policymakers.

PAN Israel: Journal Club #6 – The Effect of Mediterranean Diet on Gut Microbiome

Once a month PAN Isreal holds a short half-hour session in which one of our community members presents an interesting and relevant issue or article in the field of plant-based nutrition. This month, on our 6th meeting, Conrad Schulz-Ruhtenberg from PAN University Groups in Germany introduced an article published in the Journal GUT (from BMJ journals): Mediterranean diet intervention alters the gut microbiome in older people, reducing frailty and improving health status: the NU-AGE 1-year dietary intervention across five European countries.