Bob's Red Mill Founders and the Institute of Nutrition and Wellness at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU)

OHSU is the institution that conducts the McDougall Research and Education Foundation-funded study on Diet and Multiple Sclerosis

With a $25 million grant, announced on September, 16, 2011, the Bob and Charlee Moore Institute for Nutrition and Wellness was established at OHSU for the purpose of studying the link between food and common health conditions, such as hypertension, heart disease, type-2 diabetes, autism, and obesity. The institute will have five main areas of research: childhood obesity, maternal and fetal medicine, epigenetics (the way nutrition affects genetics), community outreach, and education. This was one of the largest donations ever given to OHSU. Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods, known for their organic and gluten-free products, is located in Milwaukie, Oregon. (Although Bob and Charlee Moore founded this company, Bob’s Red Mill is now employee-owned and not involved in this grant or the institute.)

The OHSU medical school dean, Mark Richardson, MD, says instances of those diseases (listed above) have risen sharply with the advent of processed convenience foods, high in sugar and fat but low in nutritional value. "We've got to put our knowledge to work so that individuals are supported at every step of the way to change their eating habits. By health care teams, by policy makers, by outreach and by education. We've got to make sure that everyone can make the choice to eat well."

Protest Follows from Animal Rights Advocates

There was an immediate backlash from people concerned about the welfare of animals since OHSU is involved in the use of animals for research purposes.

In response, Bob Moore stated that the donation will NOT go toward funding animal research. This was confirmed by Dr. Richardson, who says, “We will honor the intent of their gift explicitly.” Meaning they will not use this donation for funding animal testing at OHSU.

The McDougall Diet and the MS Study Are in Compliance

There is one study being conducted at OHSU that should make everyone—Bob and Charlee Moore, the OHSU medical school, and the people interested in the welfare of animals—happy. Almost four years ago a partnership between the McDougall Research and Education Foundation (a 501c3 tax deductible corporation, Employer ID # 82-0573876) and the neurology department at OHSU was established to study the effects of a healthy diet on the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Participants involved in this research are randomly assigned to follow the low-fat, starch-based McDougall Diet or the standard American diet (the control diet). Results are based on MRI scans, an evaluation of the progression of disability by a doctor, and questionnaires. The Oregon Health & Science University Research Integrity Office formally approved the study on January 15, 2009, and recruitment began. It has taken over two and a half years to enroll most of the subjects (about 60 people total). We plan to complete enrollment by year’s end. Likely, results will begin to be reported at the end of 2012. Compliance with the intervention diet has been very good in large part because all of these people go through 10-days of intensive education at the McDougall Program in Santa Rosa, California. Good research takes a long time, especially when financial resources are so limited.

Sole support for this research has come from individual donations to the McDougall Research and Education Foundation. (No university funds, pharmaceutical, or any other business-related monies were used.) We have raised about $700,000, which is the same amount of money spent to care for one patient with MS for 10 years. (The medication for MS alone costs $40,000 annually and is of very little benefit with serious side effects). Recruitment for the study has been accomplished almost entirely by individuals with MS applying directly to the neurology department of OHSU. The study has been privileged to have unwavering support from our principal investigator, Vijayshree Yadav, MD, the head of neurology at OHSU, Dennis Bourdette, MD, and all of the neurology department’s staff, since we formally began our relationship on January 16, 2008. Our diet study is based on the original work of Dr. Roy Swank who used a low-fat diet to treat patients with MS for almost 50 years. By no coincidence, he once served as the head of the neurology department at OHSU for 23 years.
 
A Brighter Future Thanks to Bob and Charlee Moore

The day after my graduation from my Internal Medicine Residency at the University of Hawaii in 1978 (the same year Bob’s Red Mill was founded), I told my chief of medicine, Irwin J Schatz MD, that 80 percent of the diseases I was caring for during my training were due to diet, and that most of these could be reversed by changing to a low-fat, starch-based meal plan. Fortunately, this was the day after my graduation and he could not retaliate against me for my bold assessment of the state of affairs.

Over the past three and a half decades, medicine has been practiced with a blind eye to human nutrition. Drugs, radiation, devices, and surgeries have been the only options available for doctors to help their patients. The results, by any mode of assessment, have been dismal, and have come at a colossal expense. There is no profit for doing the right things. That’s why today tens of millions more people are obese, sick, and drugged than were in 1978.

2011 John McDougall All Rights Reserved
Dr. McDougall's Health and Medical Center
P.O. Box 14039, Santa Rosa, CA 95402
https://www.drmcdougall.com