About | Food is Medicine

January 2016

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PhD, RD, LDN

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Mary M. Flynn, PhD, RD, LDN developed this website starting in October 2015. She is an Associate Professor of Medicine (Clinical) at Brown University and teaches courses in nutrition at Brown, and lectures on nutrition in the Albert Medical School. She has been a research dietitian at The Miriam Hospital (Providence, RI) since 1984. Her main research interest is how food can be used as medicine and her main food of interest is extra virgin olive oil, which she has been researching since 1998. In 2013, she founded The Olive Oil Health Initiative of The Miriam Hospital at Brown University that has a mission of educating the public and medical community on the health benefits of extra virgin olive oil. In 1999, she developed a plant-based, olive oil diet that she has tested for weight loss and improvement in clinical biomarkers for chronic disease in women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer; in men with prostate cancer; and to decrease food insecurity in low-income groups. She worked with McAuley House, Providence, RI to develop the Healing Foods program, which has a goal of combating type 2 diabetes mellitus, obesity and heart disease that disproportionately impacts those living in poverty.

This website was part of a “Strategy Grant” from the Rhode Island Foundation. The grant included the website and a cooking program for low-income type 2 diabetics, with the classes being taught by medical students at the Albert Medical School. Dr. Flynn named the program “Food is Medicine” as the objectives of the program are to provide basic nutrition education for health professionals and to educate current and future healthcare professionals in the use of food as medicine through this website and participation in the cooking program.

Dr. Flynn is co-author of the books LOW-FAT LIES, high fat frauds and the healthiest diet in the world (Lifeline Press, 1999) and A Pink Ribbon Diet (Da Capo Press, October 2010) which is a weight loss program and cookbook based on her research of the plant-based, olive oil diet that she has developed.

Peter Tasca edited the materials on this website. He is a PhD student at UCLA.