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Clinical Nutrition Experts Share Insights on Longevity, GLP-1RAs and More at Food Forward Panel 

While there is little evidence that Hippocrates is truly the source of the famous quote “Let food be thy medicine and medicine be they food,” the sentiment itself holds water: There is abundant evidence that high-quality nutrition is essential to preventing and treating disease. That is the central mission of the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition and the UCLA Division of Clinical Nutrition, which last week took center stage at the annual UCLA Health System board meeting with a special panel composed of nutrition experts from the DoM.  

“Food is medicine promotes health equity, improves overall health and well-being, and builds healthier communities, ultimately leading to better health outcomes and potential cost savings for individuals and the healthcare system,” panel moderator Zhaoping Li, MD — professor of medicine, center director and division chief — said.  

The panel featured nutrition division LEADERS Vijaya Surampudi, MD, division clinical chief, associate director of the UCLA Medical Weight Management Clinic and co-creator of the new UCLA Adult Support Nutrition Services for Enteral, TPN Management, and Nutrition Oncology Clinics; Jonathan Jacobs, MD, PhD, gastroenterologist and co-director of the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center at UCLA; and Steven Tan, MD, a professor of medicine and associate physician diplomate within the UCLA Center for Human Nutrition. Much of their audience was composed of UCLA Health donors and friends who have or may consider supporting the center’s work.

“I think it is important for people to feel connected to the mission they are supporting,” Dr. Surampudi said. “Getting to know the clinicians and researchers helps everyone feel the greater purpose in supporting the mission, which is fighting for better health.” 

During the panel, titled “Food Forward Health Care,” Dr. Surampudi gave updates on the division’s programs and progress, including the encouraging datapoint that patients with cancer who needed artificial nutrition had 25% to 37% shorter hospital stays if they visited one of our nutrition oncology clinics. Dr. Jacobs shared exciting findings from his area of research on the link between the diet and the gut microbiome — and the potential for their application to precision nutrition approaches — while Dr. Tan centered his talk on three key insights on nutrition and integrative medicine: redefining health from a holistic perspective, understanding why food is medicine, and the promise of personalized nutrition for the future of patient care. The three of them also covered many hot topics in popular nutrition, from the potential and pitfalls of GLP-1RAs for weight management to what the word “protein” really means on a nutrition label.  

“The one key takeaway I hope attendees come away from the panel is that food forward health care has the power to transform the way we think about health and how we deliver care, with the ultimate benefit of improving patient lives,” Dr. Tan said.  

Like Dr. Surampudi, Dr. Jacobs saw the panel as a chance to bring potential donors closer to the center’s work, helping them realize its value.  

“These kinds of events give DoM experts the opportunity to highlight areas of need in healthcare alongside cutting edge solutions like food forward health care that can be accelerated and scaled with the support and resources that passionate donors provide,” Dr. Jacobs said.  

Thank you Zhaoping, Vijaya, Jonathan and Steven for your outstanding representation of your division, the DoM and our missions!  

Nutrition Missions at UCLA Get Healthy Boost from New Digestive Diseases Center, National Recognition 

Our mission to advance health for all continues to build momentum, especially with regards to nutrition medicine. In our Aug. 4 newsletter we shared that UCLA Ronald Reagan Medical Center’s UCLA Medical Weight Management Clinic — which is housed within the DoM’s division of clinical nutrition — was named one of best medical weight loss centers in the country by Newsweek. Back in the spring, the department was thrilled to announce a $25 million gift to support the creation of the Shirley and Walter Wang Center for Integrative Digestive Health, which is ramping up to become one of the only programs of its kind in the country to specialize in treating many different diseases via the gastrointestinal system. Nutrition specialists will play a key role in this endeavor.   

These developments underscore our commitment to promoting health and optimizing holistic care for our patients. The UCLA Center for Human Nutrition and the clinical nutrition division are national leaders in research on precision nutrition, or the practice of tailoring patients’ diets to prepare them for surgery, treat metabolic disease and more.   

“Clinical nutrition is important because it uses diet to prevent, manage and treat diseases,” Division Chief Zhaoping Li, MD, said. “A one-size fit all approach has been proven not effective.  The nutrition needs for each individual are dynamic and unique. Personalized nutrition and tailored lifestyle intervention is essential.”  

I look forward to seeing how these developments amplify progress in our clinical nutrition and digestive diseases divisions! 

La Vida Helps Patients Live Healthier 

Now I would like to shine the spotlight on a program at Olive View-UCLA Medical Center that makes our world-class preventative care and nutrition expertise accessible beyond Westwood. La Vida — which stands for “Longevity and Vitality with Intentional Diet and Activity” — is a pilot lifestyle intervention program created by internist and nutrition specialist Courtney L. DeCan, MD, MPH. Over the past two years, more than 140 patients have benefitted from the tailored nutrition advice, exercise regimens and education that La Vida provides. 

“QUOTE,” Dr. DeCan said. “QUOTE.” 

La Vida stemmed from Dr. DeCan’s experience during her internal medicine residency, preventative medicine fellowship and master’s in public health program at UCLA, during which she studied how differences in health care access impacted outcomes in the clinic . Inspired to solve some of those problems, while working toward her MPH she applied for funds to pilot a two-year-long holistic healthcare program at Olive View through DGSOM’s UC End Disparities, an initiative that aims to reduce the burden of heart disease in underserved populations.  

“QUOTE,” Dr. DeCan said. “QUOTE.”  

La Vida works like this: Primary care physicians at Olive View refer patients to the program who stand to benefit from significant changes to their diet and physical activity after other approaches have failed to help them lose weight. Every two weeks for six months, they take part in individual and group visits with nutrition specialists like Dr. DeCan, who “prescribe” them exercise and diet regimens and teach them techniques for stress management and sleep improvement. Patients can take part in free classes from community partner 3WINS Fitness and in cooking demonstrations from CSUN. The program is conducted in both Spanish and English in keeping with its participant population: 81% of those enrolled in La Vida are Latino, reflecting the community served by Olive View-UCLA Medical Center. They range in age from their 20s to their 70s, with the majority in their 40s or 50s.  

Many enrollees have longed faced barriers to healthcare access that have led them to develop conditions like type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, cirrhosis and concurrent cardiovascular disease. Many of them also have physical mobility limitations. (Programs like 3WINS are especially helpful to these individuals, as the organization tailors exercise to participants’ movement abilities.) They may also be on food assistance programs such as CalFresh and have difficulty accessing consistent transportation or getting time work to participate in La Vida.  

Still, many of them lose weight successfully and complete the program with improved muscle to fat composition as well as lower hemoglobin A1C, a measure of one’s average blood sugar over a three-month period that is used to screen for diabetes. La Vida’s research arm tracks these metrics and more in addition to asking patients to rate themselves on several different healthy behaviors before and after the program. They also interview participants about their experiences.  

“One thing that has come up often is that patients really appreciate the community aspect of group visits,” Dr. DeCan said. “They really enjoy seeing other patients on the same journey and overcoming the same challenges — it motivates them.”  

The initial two-year cohort of the program will end in December. Already team members have shared some work-in-progress data on La Vida at various professional gatherings: DGSOM student Osbaldo Carmago presented at the regional meeting of the Latino Medical Student Association, while another DGSOM student, Brett Cervantes, presented at the American Academy of Family Medicine’s FUTURE leadership conference this past spring. Dr. DeCan presented data at last year’s at the HEAN annual meeting in San Francisco and just a few weeks ago at the IUNS-ICN conference in Paris. Manuscripts for submission to academic journals are in progress now that there is enough data to conduct more robust analyses.  

“We wanted to get a large enough sample size to ensure we were drawing correct assumptions,” Dr. DeCan said.  

La Vida plans to continue its clinical model after the pilot period ends, though it may be impacted by federal funding challenges. Dr. DeCan hopes that raising awareness of the program and publishing data from the pilot cohort will help secure long-term funding to keep it running and even grow.  

“Through the pilot project we've learned that in addition to what we offer, we have a need for more mental health resources, which would require additional funding,” she said. She added that programs like La Vida are particularly important in an era when weight loss is treated with medications — while many patients in the program benefit from them, they have learned though La Vida that they do not solve everything.  

“This program has shown that for many patients, their health and weight are affected by many things that medications can't address, like stress, sleep, the food environment and access to green space,” Dr. DeCan said. “Creating a space to address some of those barriers has really been a privilege for me. It’s one of my big motivators to continue this work.”  

Thank you, Dr. DeCan and the La Vida team, for your incredible dedication to transforming health for all!

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In Memory of Jonathan M. Tobis, MD

P.S.

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