Shad Marvasti, MD, MPH

SHAD'S TALK, Harnessing the Power of Food as Medicine (WATCH ON YOUTUBE)

Millions of Americans are afflicted with food insecurity and diet-related diseases – including heart disease, obesity and diabetes – yet the impact of hunger and chronic disease falls disproportionately on communities of color, people living in rural areas and older adults. Although diet is the No. 1 factor for preventable disease and death, medical students in the U.S. only receive about 20 hours of nutrition education. Culinary Medicine is an innovative approach that centers nutrition security as a primary driver of health in our communities. Most importantly, it underscores meaningful nutritional support that meets people where they are, incorporating communities' cultural beliefs and often limited financial resources. 

ABOUT DR. SHAD

Dr. Shad (Farshad Fani Marvasti, MD, MPH) is a Stanford-trained physician, medical educator, health care executive, public speaker, and author. He is proactively engaged in creating solutions to promote health and prevent the chronic diseases of our time. His work has been featured on local and national media where he has been quoted or interviewed for his recognized expertise in Public Health, Prevention, Nutrition, Wellness, Culinary Medicine, Integrative Medicine, and the use of lifestyle as medicine to prevent, treat & even reverse diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Shad is a distinguished graduate of Barrett, the Honors College at Arizona State University and has obtained both his Medical Doctorate and Master of Public Health from the University of Arizona. He completed his medical residency training in Family Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine and subsequently served as a postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Stanford Prevention Research Center. Dr. Shad currently serves as the Director of Public Health, Prevention and Health Promotion and Founding Director of The Culinary Medicine Program at the University of Arizona College of Medicine Phoenix. He is also co-founder of the University of Arizona Culinary Medicine Initiative that is developing an open access educational resource and piloting service learning in food insecure communities throughout Arizona. Acting to transform medical education as an associate professor, Dr. Shad is redesigning the 4-year medical school curriculum to include lifestyle medicine, nutrition and evidence based complementary therapies to prevent disease and maintain health throughout the lifespan. As a practicing physician, Dr. Shad advocates for the use of food as medicine and actively teaches his patients to buy and prepare healthy meals with food prescriptions as a standard part of treating their medical conditions. As an emerging thought leader, he has published in the New England Journal of Medicine where he and his co-author make the case for redesigning medicine to create a prevention based health care system.