The CCTN's Co-founders
Dr. Barbra Allen Bradshaw, MD FRCPC
Anatomical Pathologist, Abbotsford, BC
During her third pregnancy six years ago, Dr. Allen Bradshaw was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, and it was this diagnosis that prompted her interest in nutrition and the effective use of food as medicine.
Through her extensive personal re-education in this area, Dr. Allen Bradshaw has discovered that Canada’s current dietary guidelines are not based on sound scientific evidence, and have contributed significantly to our country’s current obesity and diabetes epidemics.
Since her diagnosis of gestational diabetes, Dr. Allen Bradshaw has continued eating a whole food, lower carbohydrate diet, which has resulted in significant improvements in her weight, her metabolic health, and has effectively eliminated her risk factors for the development of type 2 diabetes. Furthermore, she has seen dramatic improvements in the metabolic health of many of her family members and friends through her advocacy of a whole food approach to eating.
Dr. Allen Bradshaw continues to expand her knowledge of therapeutic nutrition by attending international conferences and organizing training with other clinicians and experts.
In recent years, Dr. Allen Bradshaw has expanded her advocacy efforts by collaborating with other physicians with an aim to improve the health of Canadians; she has a particular focus on reducing sugar and refined carbohydrates in children’s schools, as well as the development of improved, evidence based dietary guidelines for Canadians. Watch Dr. Allen Bradshaw speak at an elementary school on sugar reduction.
Dr. Carol Loffelmann, MD FRCPC
Anesthesiologist, Toronto, ON
Four years after the birth of her second child, Dr. Loffellman was attempting to lose her stubborn “baby weight” and despite her diligent adherence to a low fat diet and extensive exercise regime, was struggling. She was introduced to a paleo way of eating by an anesthesiology colleague and began noticing improvements in her weight and her health almost immediately.
Dr. Loffelmann works as an anesthesiologist. She recognized the medical education she received in nutrition was not adequate to manage her own metabolic needs. In the seven years since embarking on a low carbohydrate, whole food dietary approach, Dr. Loffelmann has extensively reviewed the scientific literature surrounding dietary research. She has immersed herself in the basic biochemistry behind human metabolism and nutrient breakdown, the evolution of mitochondria, the history of the microbiome, the dopamine reward system, and the science of epidemiology (among other topics) to ensure that she has a well informed understanding of the biological principles and plausibility of this dietary approach as it applies to modern human health.
Once it became clear that the science of nutrition is not reflected in the Food guidelines, she began her advocacy work, collaborating with Dr. Allen Bradshaw, co-founder of the CCTN.
She endeavors to promote collaboration among Canadian health professionals in the treatment and prevention of our modern day health epidemics of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease through therapeutic nutrition.