Neal Barnard, MD, FACC is an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, DC, and President of the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.
Dr. Barnard has led numerous research studies investigating the effects of diet on diabetes, body weight, hormonal symptoms, and chronic pain, including a groundbreaking study of dietary interventions in type 2 diabetes, funded by the National Institutes of Health, that paved the way for viewing type 2 diabetes as a potentially reversible condition for many patients.
Dr. Barnard has authored more than 100 scientific publications and 20 books for medical and lay readers and is the editor in chief of the Nutrition Guide for Clinicians, a textbook made available to all U.S. medical students.
As president of the Physicians Committee, Dr. Barnard leads programs advocating for preventive medicine, good nutrition, and higher ethical standards in research. His research contributed to the acceptance of plant-based diets in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. In 2015, he was named a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. In 2016, he founded the Barnard Medical Center in Washington, DC, as a model for making nutrition a routine part of all medical care.
During his childhood in Fargo, North Dakota, Dr. Barnard studied piano, cello, and guitar, and took his love of music with him to Washington, DC, where, as a medical student and resident, he was a fixture in the Washington, DC, music scene. He follows in the tradition of other scientists and physicians whose scientific innovations are complemented by explorations in music. His musical ensemble is called CarbonWorks, and they have created several albums and music videos, and Dr. Barnard has generously contributed some of these to Living Whole Online. In CarbonWorks, Barnard’s collaborators include an array of talented musicians from the U.S., Italy, Germany, and Vietnam.
Dr. Barnard received his M.D. degree at the George Washington University School of Medicine and completed his residency at the same institution. He practiced at St. Vincent’s Hospital in New York before returning to Washington to found the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.