Lenore Shapiro has been a pediatric audiologist for the past 30 years. Her career path changed when her daughter Jordyn, at the age of 12-years-old was diagnosed with Crohns disease.

 

For the first year, Jordyn was treated with the standard medications used for IBD. However, those treatments were not successful, and Jordyn's health kept declining rapidly. Lenore continued searching for information to help her daughter. In 2001, they met Dr. Melvyn Grovit and Dr. Alfred E. Slonim. Jordyn started Dr. Grovit's nutritional protocol, and 10 days later, she gained 8 lbs. and grew 1/4 of an inch. Over the next 4 1/2 months, she gained back the 30 lbs. she had lost, and grew 9 1/2 inches over the year. The rest can be read in "Jordyn's Story" on the NIBD website. Together, Dr. Grovit and Dr. Slonim created a team approach for Jordyn’s medical nutrition and growth factor needs.

 

Lenore and her husband Keith formed NIBD, to share this vital lifesaving information with other IBD patients, and form a support group for them and their families. This launched Lenore’s new career, and she has been instrumental in documenting, finding resources, and developing alternative complementary food options for IBD patients. Her own journals cataloging Jordyn’s experiences were extremely helpful toward the published case study in The Journal of the American College of Nutrition in June 2009. She has raised awareness about the role of medical nutrition and the research of Doctors Grovit and Slonim. Recently, her efforts helped forge a partnership with Columbia University Medical Center. Over the past 11 years, she has introduced many IBD patients to Dr. Grovit and Dr. Slonim, whose nutritional protocol has now been well demonstrated to be extremely beneficial for the well-being of these patients and numerous others.