A recent staff meeting at the Colorado Department of Health Care Policy and Financing featured a presentation that some staffers felt was inappropriate, including that staffers were “fat-shamed” during the meeting.

The unrecorded May 18 Zoom meeting featured University of Iowa physician Dr. Terry Wahls, who claims that, through a nutrition and lifestyle program she devised, she improved her multiple sclerosis symptoms to the point where she was able to leave her wheelchair and even ride a bicycle.

Wahls is a doctor and researcher at the University of Iowa. She’s also on the Nutrition Wellness Research in MS Subgroup for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.

The presentation made some of the staff uncomfortable, according to sources in attendance who requested anonymity due to fear of workplace retaliation.

Attendees said Wahls claimed her recommended diet “would lead to a miraculous healing of MS,” told those who can’t afford high-quality foods to “start hunting more for their own meat,” and compared feeding children Pop-Tarts to child abuse. Sources told Colorado Politics Wahls said she would “rather die than be disabled.”

“Even as staff began to complain in the online chat that they were uncomfortable with the topic and presentation, and felt it was inappropriate to be fat-shamed at a mandatory staff meeting, the presentation went on for almost an hour,” a HCPF source told Colorado Politics, adding the diet has nothing to do with the agency’s work handling Medicaid for low-income and disabled Coloradans. The claim of “fat-shaming” was confirmed by other staff members. 

One more thing made some of those in attendance uncomfortable: Wahls’ cousin, Sara, is the partner of Kim Bimestefer, who set up the presentation and is their boss in her role as HCPF’s executive director.

Bimestefer edited several blog posts written by Sara Wahls in 2015 and published on Dr. Wahls’ website. At the time, Bimestefer was president and general manager for Cigna’s Mountain States Region, a position she was “removed” from in 2016.

The agency declined to make Bimestefer available for an interview. Wahls also declined to talk about the presentation or the comments attributed to her. 

The governor’s office declined to respond to a question on whether the presentation was an appropriate use of taxpayer funds, instead referring Colorado Politics to HCPF.

Bimestefer set up the presentation for Wahls at the May 18 meeting, along with sending a series of questions for Wahls to answer during the meeting.

An open records request produced comments made in the chat during the May 18 meeting, including one that said: “It’s really troubling that Kim is using state resources to promote a family member at a required all-staff meeting.”

Other comments about the presentation were favorable, including requests for a recording of the presentation that could be shared outside of the meeting and a request for peer-reviewed research on the diet.

Those with questions were directed to Wahls’ website, where the homepage features a pitch to buy her books, including a cookbook known as the “The Wahls Protocol Cooking for Life.”

The site also includes a pitch for an app developed as a guide to using the program, which claims to help those suffering from “Type 1 Diabetes, Rheumatoid arthritis, Psoriasis, Lupus, Inflammatory bowel disease, Addison’s disease, Grave’s disease, Sjögren’s syndrome, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, Myasthenia gravis, Autoimmune vasculitis, Pernicious anemia, Celiac disease, and others.”

A National Society blog post on diet, which was done in consultation with the nutrition subgroup, said that, while many different diets have been proposed as a treatment or cure for MS, evidence of effectiveness has been limited. The study noted most have not been subjected to “rigorous, controlled studies,” and the few that have produced “mixed results.”

That included a look at three small-sample studies on the Wahls Protocol. It’s a modification of the Paleolithic diet, which eschews processed foods in favor of the diet eaten by hunter-gatherers centuries ago — whole, unprocessed foods, such as vegetables, nuts, seeds, and meat.

The MS Society said of the Wahls Protocol that “following a modified Paleolithic diet, along with a program including exercise, may improve fatigue.”

The MS Society did not call any of the diets a cure, and noted several other diets that could have more of an impact on health and health conditions. All of the diet studies reviewed had limited sample sizes, most had fewer than 50 participants. 

Wahls herself was diagnosed with MS in 2000. By 2008, following the diet she devised, along with other therapies, she began seeing significant improvement in her condition. She published a case study on her results in 2009, and last year began a two-year research study on the effects of the diet, including a larger sample size.

Her website claims she “restored her health using a diet and lifestyle program she designed specifically for her brain and now pedals her bike to work each day.”

In an email to Colorado Politics, she listed papers published in 2017 and 2021.

The latter was on a clinical trial with 87 participants, which was partly funded by the National MS Society. The paper compared the Wahls Protocol with another MS-related diet, but concluded that “the benefits of dietary approaches are due to underlying mechanisms rather than unique characteristics of specific diets.”

“This study was unable to show significant improvements in the 6-minute walk test at 12-weeks; however, the Wahls group in the primary analysis and both groups in the secondary analysis showed significant increases in meters walked during the 6MWT at 24-weeks,” the paper found.

The questions she was asked to address during the May 18 presentation, sent in a May 17 email from Bimestefer, were:

• You are extraordinarily passionate about healthy eating and food as medicine. Why? Where does your passion come from? (tell your story)
• How do eating habits directly contribute or mitigate health conditions like cancer, diabetes, heart disease and other common conditions?
• For people who struggle with depression, anxiety or other mental health issues, how do eating habits mitigate or exacerbate those conditions?
• Can you summarize the recommendations in your books, lectures, and publications into a few quick bullets to help our staff get healthier and stay healthier? (xx cups of veggies a day, Vitamin D, meditation, exercise, etc.)
• If a listener wants to improve their eating habits, but they struggle to do so, what tips can you offer to help them succeed this time?
• Do you have any tips to help parents get their kids to eat vegetables?
• If a listener is in an environment – home or work – and others in that environment are not being helpful in supporting healthy habits or change, what recommendations do you have for them?
• Focusing on what to do is critical. Thx for the advice on that so far. But what are the key food areas that are critical to avoid?
• We cover and support low income people who are on SNAP (food stamps). We serve people with disabilities. We serve people who struggle in food deserts. Any advice for how to eat healthy on a lower income?

“These are excellent questions,” Wahls responded. “Looking forward to it.”