Dr. Padda is a Medical Physician, Board Certified in Anesthesiology, Addiction and Interventional Pain.  For over 20 years he has practiced in the Urban Core, helping his patients regain their metabolic health.

Pain is the final pathway, the body screaming that something has gone terribly wrong.  Dr. Padda treats clinically patients at the intersection of the pain epidemic, opioid epidemic, and the diabetes epidemic.  They are all inter-related pathologies, the clinical manifestations of systemic metainflammation. 

I spend most of my clinical hours dealing with chronic degenerative diseases that are primarily driven by Metabolic Syndrome leading to Metainflammation.  Metabolic Syndrome is a form of malnutrition, a malnutrition of excessive energy consumption and toxicity from:
     Acellular Carbohydrates
     Synthetic Vegetable Oil consumption

This malnutrition of excess is aggravated by leaky gut from plant based chemical defenses. 

The Standard American Diet has become calorically dense, but diluted of protein, minerals, and micronutrients.  

Unfortunately, Governmental policy combined with the profit motives of Big-Food and Big-Pharma encourages the consumption of manufactured foods, which may be non-nutritive and promote chronic systemic diseases.  This disparity of synthesized food (which contains low nutritional value but high caloric load) leads to caloric over consumption, energy toxicity and eventual diabesity.

Addiction behavior is manipulated by dopaminergic modulation by food manufacturers and gamification of passive activities, in the context of individual loneliness.  Social media “connectedness” has created a false paradigm of human interaction, leaving individuals in silos of anonymous and self-destructive behavior.

Humans are complex adaptive systems, and systematic failure is rarely a single cause phenomenon.  Our historical disease models of single cause pathology are inadequate for this new synthesized Universe.

Mark Cucuzzella, is a Professor at West Virginia University School of Medicine. He is also a LtCol in the US Air Force designing programs to promote health and better fitness in the military with the USAF Efficient Running Project. (available on iphone format here) In military and civilian community he has been a tireless promoter of healthy movement, nutritional interventions in patients with any spectrum of the metabolic syndrome, and injury free training for running.

He was a lead writer of one of the first grants supporting education of Medical Students in nutrition and physical activity in Medical School.  Mark is also the lead on a large USDA grant to double SNAP benefits at Farmers Markets- the goal is reducing food insecurity as a barrier to healthier eating.

He’s also been a competitive runner for over 30 years — with more than 100 marathon and ultramarathon finishes — and continues to compete as a national-level Masters runner. He has won the Air Force Marathon twice. He is the race director of Freedom’s Run race series in West Virginia and director of the Natural Running Center, an education portal designed to teach healthier running . Mark is also the owner of Two Rivers Treads — A Center for Natural Running and Walking in his hometown of Shepherdstown, W.Va.  Mark’s vision of a future of health is housed in his site www.drmarksdesk.com

Mark’s innovative work and story has been featured in the New York Times, NPR, Outside Magazine, Running Times, Runners World, Air Force Times, the Washington Post, JAMA, Blue Ridge Outdoors, and other medical and media outlets.  

Mark Cucuzzella MD FAAFP
Professor West Virginia University School of Medicine

DrMarksDesk.com 

store/race HQ 304-876-1100
mobile 304-268-8813
[email protected]

Dr. Vera Tarman is the Medical Director of one of Canada’s largest treatment centres for substance abuse. She is a world renown food addition expert, who writes, speaks and treats people who suffer from food (sugar and flour) addiction. She is the author of Food Junkies: Recovery from Food Addiction, which is now in its second edition. She is also cohost of the successful  Junkies Podcast, along wth Molly Painschab and Clarissa Kennedy.  You can also find her at her free facebook group “I’m Sweet Enough: Sugar-Free for Life”.

Vera is a recovering food addict herself, and has lost and maintained a 100 pound weight loss for over twelve years. She has not had any sugar or flour or grains for over seven years. 

Dr. Shawn Roberts is an alumnus of Concordia College in Moorhead where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with a major in Biology. While attending Concordia, Dr. Roberts was recognized with several honors, including the Alworth and Faculty Scholar academic awards. He attended the University of Minnesota Medical School and completed his surgical internship and residency at Hennepin County Medical Center. Dr. Roberts completed a Critical Care Fellowship at Hennepin County Medical Center in 2002. He completed his Minimally Invasive Surgery Fellowship at the Minnesota Institute for Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIMIS) at CRMC. Dr. Roberts is Board Certified by the American College of Surgeons.

He has special interests in the areas of surgical management of cancer, vascular surgery, advanced laparoscopy, surgical weight loss, and reflux management. Dr. Roberts joined the medical campus in Crosby in 2004. Since then, he has been involved in the American College of Surgeons State Committee on Trauma. He serves as the regional liaison. Dr. Roberts has served as Chief of Surgery, Trauma Director, Quality Committee Chairman, as well as a member of the Medical Staff Executive Committee and Leaders. He remains an active member of the CRMC Quality Committee, The American College of Surgeons Oncology Committee, The American College of Surgery State, and the local committee on Trauma and CRMC’s Bariatric and Reflux Committees. 

Dr. Angelina Ausban grew up in Northern California and graduated from Mills College with a BA in Chemistry. She worked as a chemist for six years before going to medical school school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. She then did a combined internship in Internal Medicine and Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota where she met her husband, Dr. Kevin Smith.

They moved to Milwaukee Wisconsin where she completed her residency at the Medical College of Wisconsin and became board-certified in IM and Pediatrics.  She has practiced in Milwaukee until 1999 (while her husband finished his Radiology residency); in Duluth, Minnesota from 1999 to 2003 at the Miller Creek Medical Clinic; and in St Cloud, MN for 18 years at CentraCare Clinic.

In 2014, she helped found the CentraCare Medical Weight Management program. She became certified in Obesity Medicine that year. In 2016, she received a grant to assess the cost effectiveness of having a Health Coach integrated into her clinic’s healthcare team to focus on Lifestyle change, namely dietary change and weight loss. This revealed a 300% return on investment and a significant decrease in healthcare costs.  In 2021, she joined CRMC as the Medical Director and founder of the Metabolic Health and Medical Weight Management Program working hand-in-hand with the long-standing highly respected bariatric surgery program there. In less than three years, her program has helped her patients lose over 17,000 pounds, an average of 20% weight loss per patient.

Outside of her practice, Angie enjoys travel, golf, gardening, chess, reading, and spending time with family and friends. She and her husband have two grown children, and enjoy living in the Brainerd Lakes Community.