Susan DeLaney began her career in health care as a nurse. She went on to study natural medicine for four years and graduated as a naturopathic doctor in 1984. Her goal for the Your Health Is No Big Thing—It's a Million Little Things videos is to provide accurate nutrition information and to engage people in their own health-care choices.
Susan DeLaney —
I have practiced natural medicine as a Naturopathic Doctor in Carrboro, NC since 1987. After graduating from the National College of Natural Medicine in 1984, I traveled to India to further my studies in the specialized field of Homeopathic medicine. My practice also includes nutritional, dietary, and botanical medicine, along with a focus in life-style counseling. Using a natural approach to healing, I am able to help people become less dependent on prescription drugs and to improve their health and vitality.
As one of six girls, I was raised on a dairy farm in rural North Carolina during the 1950s and 1960s. The family diet consisted mostly of grass-fed beef and raw milk, along with vegetables from the garden. I am forever grateful for the foundation for life-long health that farm life provided for me and my family.
In my years of practice, I have educated many people on a one-to-one basis as well as speaking on nutrition to various organizations. I lecture annually at UNC-Chapel in the Integrative Medicine Department and at various medical conferences. During the past couple of decades, I have observed that the health of many people has greatly declined, while the number of prescriptions has dramatically increased. My interest in creating and offering this project to the public arises from the growing numbers of children, who are suffering great harm to their health as a result of poor nutritional advice from well-intended medical professionals. It is my hope that using humor along with science to convey new health options to people, will inspire changes in nutritional guidelines and a revolution in eating real food.
Dorothy Smith, editor of Your Health Is No Big Thing—It's a Million Little Things, is a retired costume designer in Charlottesville, VA. Her passion for this project comes from witnessing the end of her father’s life on statin drugs. [He wasn’t really a study subject. His family doctor was a Statin proponent.]
Dorothy Smith —
My father earned his Doctor of Divinity from Union Seminary in New York and became a Presbyterian pastor. He had an extremely high IQ, famous verbal skills, and high levels of cholesterol. When statin drugs were created to reduce cholesterol, which was already labeled as the cause of heart attacks, my Dad was asked to be a test subject for the first statin drug, Mevacor. He went on to take each new statin drug for the rest of his life.
The first thing that happened after starting a statin was that my Dad lost a lot of weight and became rail thin. Gradually his speech became garbled until he was unintelligible. Ultimately, after being fit his whole life, he lost all muscle strength, including for walking, getting up from the sofa, and even standing upright.
In 2009 I heard former astronaut and family doctor Duane Graveline on The People's Pharmacy radio show tell his story of a bizarre cognitive event caused by taking Lipitor. Dr. Graveline went on to create the website spacedoc.com to provide first-hand accounts from families of their experiences with statins and studies from across the globe of potential side effects. I knew immediately that I had stumbled across the exact cause of my father's cognitive decline. I remember Dr. Graveline saying, "Our elders are being robbed of their golden years."
When my old Girl Scout camp friend Susan DeLaney asked me to help her tell the history behind the current health crisis in America using a fun campfire storytelling technique, I was in. (My arms are too short, or I could have added Arms to my drama resume.) I dedicate my contribution to my father, William Spence Smith, who always did what the doctor said.
Carol DeLaney was a nurse for 39 years, specializing in AIDS and Oncology clinical research. Her underlying focus was on the integration of body, mind and spirit. She counseled patients on what foods to eat to minimize chemotherapy side effects, and she also supported patients emotionally. She asked questions such as what gives people hope, what is their purpose and what relationships are important to them. These spiritual questions led her to pursue Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in 2020. In CPE she trained to be a spiritual companion to people of all faith traditions and those with “none.”
Carol DeLaney —
Susan and Carol are siblings sharing similar health philosophies and have been fortunate to have an ongoing conversation on health, disease and wellbeing. In July 2018 they attended a workshop for a week with Dr. Yang, a Qi Gong master. The day before their departure they performed a skit using the pantomime technique used in the Nutritional Videos. Susan’s arms became her legs and feet, and Carol was pressed against her back becoming her arms and hands. The skit was an instant hit, and the “Chi Sisters” were born.
Susan and Carol spent 7 days rehearsing and filming “Your Health is no big thing…it’s a million little Things.” Just as Carol was pressing against Susan’s back for a week becoming her talking hands, Carol knows Susan will always have “her back.” Carol’s hope is that viewers learn the historical development of the falsely upheld ideas surrounding saturated fats/cholesterol and that they will subsequently adopt healthy eating habits.