Groesbeck Parham, M.D.: Fighting Cancer at Its Source
 In his work with the National Cancer Institute and PCRM’s
Cancer Project, gynecologic oncologist Groesbeck Parham, M.D.,
is empowering African-American communities in the Deep South with
his message of vegan nutrition.
“Most of the diseases that are killing African Americans
are nutritionally related,” says Dr. Parham, an Alabama resident
and professor at the University of Alabama School of Medicine. “That’s
why the promotion of healthy lifestyle changes, of which vegan
nutrition is an extremely important component, is so fundamental.”
After 17 years of practicing medicine as a prominent academic
cancer surgeon, Dr. Parham completely changed his focus four years
ago. “As I became disenchanted with the limitations of modern
medicine in treating various cancers, I started searching for other
answers,” explains Dr. Parham.
Research led him to understand the power of good nutrition to
modulate the immune system and help prevent cancer and prolong
survival. It wasn’t long before he decided to spread that
message to a population at special risk of cancer and other diet-related
diseases: African Americans.
Now Dr. Parham teaches groups in churches, community centers,
and housing projects in Alabama and Mississippi, empowering people
to take control of their health. Although he says this can be an
uncomfortable message in a community riddled by obesity, type 2
diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer, he uses good food
to inspire change. All classes include cooking demonstrations of
how to prepare various vegan foods and a tasting of samples to
prove that healthful food can be delicious.
Dr. Parham’s wife, Katherine, uses her cooking skills to
create plant-based foods such as tofu burgers and mashed cauliflower
with mushroom gravy that appeal to people raised on Southern fare. “Everywhere
we go, people ask for second servings,” Dr. Parham says proudly. “People
can feel and taste the love she put into the food.”
The National Cancer Institute awarded Dr. Parham two grants to
discover ways to encourage African Americans in the rural South
to eat more fruits and vegetables. He is presently teaching cooking
classes in Alabama for PCRM’s Cancer Project with plans to
extend them into Mississippi.
The Parhams, a warm and outgoing couple, view their diet-changing
mission as an extension of a long history of activism that dates
to the civil rights movement in Birmingham, Alabama, in the 1960s. “We
need to turn the quest for wellness in the African-American community
into a social movement,” Dr. Parham says.
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