Strengths

The strengths of the Foundation lay in its experience with research, treatment, public advocacy, and business management related to addiction and nutrition.

• Board Members
  The Foundation is guided by Board Members with extensive research records, extensive clinical experience, prestigious academic and advisory appointments, and high-level professional associations. The synergy between research and clinical experience has produced exceptional results in early studies.
  • Irma Diaz-Gonzalez, President, Employment & Training Centers, Inc. 30 years of high-level Hispanic advocacy in Houston, Texas
  • Joan Ifland, PhD (pending), MBA, researcher, writer, educator, clinician and business manager in addictive nutrition
  • Marianne T. Marcus, EdD, RN, FAAN, John P. McGovern Professor of Addictions in Nursing, University of Texas School of Nursing, Houston. Director of $3 million NIH grant to study meditation in the treatment of addictions
  • Harry G. Preuss, MD, MACN, CNS Georgetown University Medical School, American College of Nutrition, Master and President Emeritus
  • Kathleen Rourke, PhD, RD, RN, FAAN, Board of the American Dietetic Association, Director of On-Line Programming for the Education Management Corporation
  • Wendell C. Taylor, PhD, MPH, faculty University of Texas School of Public Health, Houston. Consultant for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Center for Disease Control
     
• Early Findings
  The Foundation has made important early findings in refined food addiction that strengthen its ability to create the preponderance of evidence for the disease. The Foundation has a long head start in research design and execution.
  • The discovery of the first hard data for the existence of refined food addiction as a substance-based use disorder
  • The discovery that specific refined foods correlate with addictive eating behavior and that unrefined foods are not used in addictive behavior
  • The discovery of the first hard data to support the hypothesis that ReFA may be the underlying cause of diet-related diseases including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, resistance to exercise, and mood disorders
  • The first evidence that fatigue may motivate addictive behaviors such as use to avoid fatigue-related withdrawal, spending time sleeping to recover from use, missing events due to fatigue, and use in spite of knowledge of fatigue.
     
• Patents
  The Foundation holds extensive patents in research and treatment methods as well as consumer products. The patents strengthen the Foundation’s ability to create a reliable brand that will be trusted to aid in the recovery from food addiction.
   
• Practical Experience
  The Foundation has extensive experience in the use of abstinence from refined foods as an effective treatment method for the cravings that lead to compulsive overeating. The Foundation also has access to populations of self-identified food addicts for research. These assets strengthen the Foundation’s ability to develop treatment protocols that will be effective at curbing poor food choices.
   
• Strategic Plan
  The Foundation operates from a well-researched strategic plan based on the tobacco experience to reach goals in research, treatment, public awareness, consumer recovery product development, consulting, and funding, This plan strengthens the Foundations potential to deliver useful treatment to victims of refined food addiction without incurring the interference that hampered efforts to curb smoking.