New York, NY, March 30, 2022
By Nina Teicholz
Members of the Nutrition Coalition deeply mourn the loss of Dr. Sarah Hallberg, who served as the head of our group’s scientific council and was also a member of the governing board. Dr. Hallberg passed away earlier this week, after a nearly five-year long battle with cancer. Like the many people whose lives she touched, we are deeply saddened by this news, and we send condolences to her family, friends, and loved ones.
Sarah was a brave, brilliant, and compassionate human being. We feel lucky that she committed her time and extraordinary skills to support the Coalition’s mission. She had a talent for educating people about the latest science on obesity and diabetes and a fearless, infectious passion for change.
Sarah brought a clear-thinking optimism to her advocacy around the need to let people know that type 2 diabetes is reversible. In addition, she made time to talk about the importance of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for American and how this policy could be improved to better serve people suffering from chronic diseases. As the founder of a practice in obesity medicine, she saw these people every day, and she could not bear that those with obesity and diabetes should be blamed for their conditions. “If we have to extend the blame somewhere, it’s been with our advice,” she said in her viral Tedx talk, now with more than 8.5 million views, entitled “Reversing Type 2 Diabetes Starts by Ignoring the Guidelines.”
Sarah flew from her home in Indiana to Washington, D.C., to testify before the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. She also came to meet with members of the Congressional Diabetes Caucus and to give a formal briefing to Congress on diabetes.
More recently, Sarah advocated for the guidelines to be more tailored to the individual needs of different cultural and racial groups. She would explain, for instance, that black women manifest heart disease very differently from white men or that Vitamin D absorption varied among different races. Sarah helped push for the creation of Food4Health, a group that the Coalition helped found that is dedicated to ensuring the guidelines reflect the diverse needs of a racially and culturally diverse nation.
In addition to being the Medical Director and founder of the Medically Supervised Weight Loss Program at Indiana University Health Arnett, Sarah was the Medical Director of Virta Health, a technology company dedicated to reversing type 2 diabetes. She was a Fellow of the Aspen Institute’s Health Innovator Fellowship, a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network, and an adjunct Professor of Clinical Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine.
Throughout her own long illness, Sarah continued to conduct research on and advocate for those suffering from type 2 diabetes, creating a truly remarkable body of work comprised of both the science and practice of reversing T2.
Continuing this effort, even after her own death, was her dream. That is why I, along with other friends and Sarah’s family, are honoring her wishes. We are setting up a non-profit group dedicated to continuing her passion for education. As a first step, we will put together a lecture course comprised of her videos. Then we aim to launch an occasional Sarah Hallberg Memorial Podcast featuring the latest research on reversing type 2 diabetes. After that, we look forward to more ideas on how to foster education in this area.
Donations can be sent to a GoFundMe account for “Reversing T2,” which will help make Sarah's dream a reality.
About the Nutrition Coalition
The Nutrition Coalition is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, non-partisan educational organization, founded in 2015, with the primary goal of ensuring that U.S. nutrition policy is fully transparent and based on rigorous scientific evidence.