Dr. Shari Lieberman passes.

Shari Lieberman, PhD, died in July after a prolonged course of treating metastatic breast cancer. Dr. Lieberman, age 50, held a PhD in clinical nutrition and exercise physiology. She was a certified nutritional specialist, renowned author of nutritional books, lecturer and public speaker, advocate for nutritionist care, and leader in crusading for nutritional treatment in medicine. Dr. Lieberman's books included Transitions Glycemic Index Food Guide (2006), The Real Vitamin & Mineral Book (2003), Dare to Lose: 4 Simple Steps to a Better Body (2003), and All About Vitamin C (1999). Dr. Lieberman's activist activities included her board and president position for the American Preventive Medical Association, later known as the American Association for Health Freedom. Lieberman testified at legislative hearings about nutrition, dietary supplements, and suppression of information regarding nutritional supplements. The American Dietetic Association once sought to strip Lieberman of her nutritionist credentials; she marshaled an admiral defense of nutrition and dietary supplementation, maintaining her credentials. Lieberman has served as a defense witness supporting nutritional supplementation for doctors, nutritionists, and health-supplement companies. Regrettably, her capable arguments in support of nutritional supplements were not collected into a series of papers. Very forthright, Lieberman did not mince words in attacking the sloppy science of a dietary supplement naysayer. She had a special disdain for the handful of individuals who have made a livelihood of attacking alternative medicine therapies. Nutritional medicine has lost one of its lions!

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Over the years Dr. Lieberman has written articles for the Townsend Letter. In the August/September 2007 and 2008 issues, she wrote about Poly MVA, a proprietary formulation used as a nutritional adjunctive treatment for cancer. Lieberman previously had reported the role of Poly MVA in treating metastatic prostate cancer in the August 2005 issue of Alternative & Complementary Therapies. Dr. Lieberman's last published article appeared in the August/September 2009 issue of the Townsend Letter. The study, "A Review of Whole Body Hyperthermia and the Experience of Klinik St. Georg," reports the results Dr. Friedrich Douwes, president of the German Society for Oncology, has had using hyperthermia in advanced cancer. In conversations I had had with Shari during the past year, she was impressed that hyperthermia was a major advance in cancer care. She had been planning to write a series of papers on hyperthermia based on the experiences of Dr. Douwes. Her premature death precluded the further exploration of hyperthermia on these pages.

Dr. Lieberman strongly believed in the role that gluten enteropathy plays in creating ill health. This issue of the Townsend Letter focuses on digestive problems and irritable bowel syndrome. Dr. Lieberman would have argued that all patients suffering from IBS and other digestive problems should be investigated for gluten sensitivity and wheat allergy.

Shari Lieberman, PhD