Michael Prager is chairman and a cofounder of the Food Addiction Institute. He was a daily newspaper journalist for 30 years, and is the author of two books, “Fat Boy Thin Man” and “Sustainable You.”

Susan Peirce Thompson is a faculty member in brain and cognitive sciences at the University of Rochester, a multiple New York Times bestselling author, and a keynote speaker on how the brain supports human flourishing. In 2014, she founded Bright Line Eating, a worldwide movement dedicated to helping people achieve permanent weight loss maintenance by creating “Bright Lines” or clear boundaries including no sugar, no flour, and no snacking. Over 115,000 people from more than 100 countries have taken her courses and you can find her online at BrightLineEating.com or SusanPeirceThompson.com.

Kim Dennis is double board-certified in psychiatry and addiction medicine. She specializes in treating eating disorders, SUDs, food addiction, trauma, and complex co-occurring psychiatric disorders. She maintains a holistic and integrated treatment philosophy, incorporating the biological, psychological, social and spiritual approaches into trauma-informed, personalized treatment plans. She is the co-founder, Chief Medical Officer, and CEO of SunCloud Health. She obtained her medical degree from the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine, and completed her psychiatry residency training at the University of Chicago Hospitals, where she served as Chief Resident. Dr. Dennis is a clinical assistant professor at the University of Illinois Chicago in the Department of Psychiatry. She serves as a member of NEDA’s Clinical Advisory Council, a member of the American Association of Pediatrics Eating Disorders and Obesity Workgroup, scientific advisory board member for ANAD, Food Addiction Institute board member and leads the research lab at SCH. Dr. Dennis brings lived experience to her work as a physician with long-term recovery from addiction (including food), an eating disorder, and trauma.

Dr. Ana Rosa (“Dr. Ana Rosa Gratitude”), MD, PhD, is a U.S. and Brazilian board-certified radiologist, physician educator, and speaker specializing in the imaging manifestations of metabolic disease, chronic inflammation, and body composition.

She earned her medical degree from the Federal University of Goiás (Brazil) and her PhD in Imaging Medical Sciences from the University of São Paulo (USP). She completed the radiology residency and the fellowship training in both Brazil and the United States, including advanced training at the University of Minnesota, and has practiced in both academic and clinical settings. 

Drawing on her background in diagnostic imaging and her own journey in metabolic health, Dr. Ana Rosa teaches how radiology can identify the early manifestations of insulin resistance and chronic metabolic dysfunction long before advanced disease develops. Her educational work focuses on visceral adiposity, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), sarcopenia, myosteatosis, pancreatic fat, and brain changes associated with metabolic disease.

In addition to her medical career, she is a Certified High Performance Coach®, Jay Shetty Certified Coach, certified menopause educator, and grief gratitude educator. Her work integrates imaging science with evidence-based lifestyle medicine, behavior change, and metabolic health education, helping clinicians translate complex science into practical strategies for disease prevention and long-term health.

Nadir Ali, MD has practiced interventional cardiology in the Houston area for over 33 years. He completed his Cardiology Fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine, along with advanced research training through the American Heart Association Bugher Foundation, and specialized in interventional cardiology in 1994. He subsequently served as Assistant Professor of Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine and Director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory at the DeBakey VA Medical Center in Houston, Texas.

For more than two decades, Dr. Ali has practiced in the NASA/Clear Lake region of Houston, where he has served as Chairman of the Department of Cardiology for over a decade, providing clinical leadership and strategic direction for cardiovascular services. He has also served both as a member and as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at HCA Houston Healthcare Clear Lake, contributing to institutional governance, quality oversight, and long-term organizational planning.

During the first 20 years of his career, his focus was interventional cardiology — performing balloon angioplasty and coronary stenting to treat obstructive coronary artery disease. Over time, however, he became increasingly concerned that conventional medical approaches inadequately addressed the root causes of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia.

In 2013, following a personal journey of discovery, Dr. Ali became convinced that diet-mediated insulin resistance underlies many chronic cardiometabolic diseases. Since then, he has concentrated on integrating diet and lifestyle interventions into his clinical practice to prevent and reverse heart disease, diabetes, and obesity.

Dr. Ali authored the chapter “Cardiovascular Disease and Its Association with Insulin Resistance and Cholesterol” in the textbook Ketogenic: The Science of Therapeutic Carbohydrate Restriction in Human Health, edited by Professor Tim Noakes.

He founded and organized the international conference Low Carb Houston in 2018 and 2019 to disseminate practical nutritional and fasting education to the general public. He remains active in national and international metabolic health conferences and shares educational content through his YouTube channel.

Dr. Ben has been at the forefront of health and wellness for nearly 50 years. As a clinician in the fields of fitness and health he has initiated and promoted behavioral interventions that have proven to be effective in the treatment and management of the degenerative diseases that plague our public health.

Dr. Ben’s philosophy states that on the continuum of illness to wellness, our collective health plans should attempt to drive the needle towards wellness and away from illness through scientifically sound and safe applications of behavioural endeavors.

Dr. Ben has applied his extensive, recognized background and experience in diet and exercise as the basis of his intervention protocol. Initially (1974), he introduced slow resistance training to the exercise world in a successful attempt to provide safe, high intensity exercise to all populations.

He was the first practitioner to include resistance training to phase II cardiac rehabilitation in 1982. It is now accepted, standard protocol. He pioneered high intensity exercise for high endurance athletes in the mid 1980’s. Lastly, he introduced high intensity exercise for weight loss and management programs including the Opti Fast protocol used by the first popular bariatric physicians (Opti Fit).

Furthermore, Dr. Ben has exposed the paucity of legitimate science supporting conventional medical and governmental practices in treating and managing the aforementioned health dilemmas. He contends that a singularly pharmaceutical oriented solution as currently applied has failed individually and on an international basis.

Dr. Ben provides a simple history of the escalation of degenerative diseases (diabetes, obesity, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, arthritis, cancer etc.) that correlates, at an inordinate level, with behavioral changes in physical activity and dietary preferences.

Lastly, Dr. Ben offers a simple, sound and scientifically based plan that incorporates a universally applicable system that directly addresses the alarming, current state of public health. Topics included are: Diet, exercise, disease treatment and management options and cost analyses of these.

Dr. Ben Bocchicchio has published more than 200 articles and study reports in the fields of Fitness, Health and Exercise. His work includes his acclaimed book “15 Minutes to Fitness” and the sale of more than 300,000 SMaRT DVD’s in 31 countries. He is continuing work as an investigator and consultant to Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, ASU and a number of academic and corporate health institutions.

Dr. Donald Phillips is an osteopathic emergency physician, former paramedic, EMS Medical Director, and educator with more than 30 years of experience in emergency medicine. After struggling with his own metabolic health and reaching 260 pounds, he adopted a ketogenic lifestyle in 2019 and later transitioned to a carnivore diet, losing more than 70 pounds.

Today, he is passionate about educating patients and healthcare professionals about the role of metabolic health in addressing the metabolic drivers of chronic disease. Drawing on both personal experience and a career spent treating the consequences of chronic illness, he believes the emergency department is an often-overlooked opportunity to empower patients with information that can transform their health and quality of life. 

Dr. Jerome-Zapadka is an honors graduate of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where she completed her Internal Medicine residency and a fellowship in Gastroenterology and Hepatology. She is board certified in Gastroenterology and Obesity Medicine and is certified as a Metabolic Health Practitioner. 

She is a founding member of the SMHP, and credits this organization for the knowledge that transformed her clinical practice.

Since 2019, her clinical practice, the VGA Center for Obesity Medicine, now known as Trajectory Health Partners, focuses on the comprehensive evaluation of insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, and metabolic diseases, particularly Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD), but also pre- and type two diabetes, high triglycerides and PCOS/PMOS, with the goal of early detection and disease reversal, using Therapeutic Carbohydrate Reduction including Ketogenic nutrition. Through this practice she mentors medical residents, and nursing/pre-med students regarding metabolic health.

Locally she is involved with the non-profits: Liver Education Advocates, where she serves as Board Chair, and the Community Liver Alliance where she is a founding member of the Fatty Liver Coalition and on the Steering Committee to plan the yearly National Liver Gathering.  These organizations raise awareness about the devastation of MASLD and educate the public about risks and early screening.  For several years she founded and co-chaired the Metabolic Task Force at Heritage Valley Health System, focusing on the hospital’s response to the metabolic pandemic.

At the national level, she is a member of the Coalition for Metabolic Health and serves on its Scientific and Clinical Advisory Committee and Board.

Dr. Cywes is Dual Board Certified in General Surgery and in Pediatric Surgery. He specializes in Pediatric and Adult obesity, diabetes and metabolic management including bariatric surgery.  His focus is on helping people understand and treat the true cause of obesity and diabetes.  He has been doing bariatric surgery for 19 years and has performed around 7000 surgeries.  Despite this, Dr Cywes firmly believes that obesity and diabetes are not treated by surgery, however, surgery may be a invaluable tool along the journey of becoming carbohydrate-free.

His medical training began in Cape Town, South Africa where he received his medical degree from The University of Cape Town training with Prof Tim Noakes amongst others. In 1989, Dr. Cywes moved to North America and completed a year-long residency in pediatric surgery at Ohio State University’s Columbus Children’s Hospital before moving to Canada where he completed his general surgery residency and specialized in minimally invasive surgery at the University of Toronto.  Dr. Cywes also earned a PhD in liver transplant immunology and the effect of glucose metabolism on vascular endothelium injury, working with Dr David Jenkins, the father of the Glycemic Index.

After completing his paediatric surgery fellowship at the University of Michigan’s C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital, Dr. Cywes was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Paediatric and Fetal Surgery at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee where he did hepatic stem cell research.  During this time, Dr. Cywes became increasingly interested in adolescent obesity and the impact of carbohydrates on the liver and metabolic syndrome in young patients. Dr. Cywes’ research led to a comprehensive understanding of the toxicity of chronic excessive carbohydrate consumption as the primary cause of obesity and so-called obesity-related co-morbidities. In the late 1990s Dr Cywes understood that the prevailing treatment of obesity using a Calories in, Calories out (CICO) model was erroneous, and he developed the Carbohydrate Insulin Model of Obesity and Diabetes (CIMOD). Using this model in combination with his understanding of the psychology of addiction, he developed a clinical program to treat obese adolescents using this approach. Dr. Cywes relocated to Jacksonville, Florida where he joined the Department of Pediatric Surgery at the Nemours Children’s Clinic and Wolfson Children’s Hospital. This led to a national meeting in Jacksonville where guidelines for adolescent obesity surgery were established.

In 2004, Dr. Cywes established Jacksonville Surgical Associates to continue his work in both adolescent and adult obesity treatment and surgery, and in 2013 opened a practice in West Palm Beach, Florida.  He now works with a highly experienced team of professionals from a variety of medical sub-specialties to better care for obese patients.  He has developed the practice into a nationally recognized Center of Excellence for obesity surgery. The practice uses a cognitive behavioral therapy approach that addresses carbohydrate addiction, along with bariatric surgery, to help patients manage the cause of their obesity long term. Based on his extensive clinical research and observations, Dr. Cywes lectures internationally regarding the physiological impact of carbohydrate consumption as the primary cause of the current Chronic Non-Communicable Disease (CNCDs) epidemic.  He also lectures on the behavioral aspects of carbohydrate addiction as the cause of obesity and obesity-related co-morbidities and the use of substance abuse methodology, rather than a diet and exercise approach, to the effective long term treatment of obesity.

Dr. Cywes is a member of ASMBS (American Society of Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery) and is a member of the ASMBS Childhood Obesity Committee. He is also a member of APSA (American Pediatric Surgery Association). He has earned a Centers of Excellence designation by the Surgical Review Corporation. Dr. Cywes trains other surgeons to perform bariatric surgery as well as developing an aftercare model to help patients maintain weight loss.

Dr. Cywes and his team are active in obesity research, including an ongoing Adolescent Bariatric Surgery trial. He has become one of the foremost authorities in the treatment and management of obesity in adolescents. He recently co-authored a book, Diabetes Unpacked outlining an effective approach to understanding and treating diabetes into remission. Dr. Cywes’ vast experience in pediatric and general surgery serves him well in using bariatric surgery to treat obesity in both adults and children.

Dr Cywes maintains an active clinical practice in Palm Beach Gardens and in Jacksonville as well as being active on conveying the CIMOD message on social media and through his websites – Obesityunderstood.com and diabetesunderstood.com.

Dr. Dominic D’Agostino is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida (USF) Morsani College of Medicine and also a Senior Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC). The primary focus of his laboratory is directed towards understanding the physiological effects of hyperbaric oxygen and developing and testing metabolic-based therapies, including ketogenic diets, ketone supplements and drugs that target specific metabolic pathways.

His research explores the use of these therapies for a broad range of disorders linked pathophysiologically to metabolic dysregulation, including seizures, neurodegenerative diseases, genetic diseases and cancer. D’Agostino’s laboratory uses in vivo and in vitro techniques to understand the physiological, cellular and molecular mechanism of metabolic therapies. His research is supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Department of Defense (DoD), private organizations and foundations.