Andres Digenio, MD, PhD, is a physician, researcher, and author who has spent much of his career helping people improve their health through changes in nutrition, physical activity, and everyday habits. He has worked in cardiac rehabilitation, obesity treatment, academic medicine, and clinical research and has published more than 150 scientific papers. His recently published book, The Natural Diet, translates what he has learned over many years into a practical program for healthier living.
About The Natural Diet
The Natural Diet is a practical, science-based guide to losing weight and building a healthier lifestyle that lasts. Over 24 weeks, readers learn how to reduce ultra-processed foods, eat more home-prepared meals, become more physically active, and develop healthier everyday habits.
The book follows Brenda, a busy professional woman in her forties who has recently been diagnosed with diabetes and needs to lose weight. With the help of a health coach, she gradually changes how she eats, shops, exercises, and responds to the pressures and habits that contributed to her weight gain. She has successes and setbacks along the way, making her journey one readers can identify with.
By combining Brenda’s story with practical guidance on nutrition, physical activity, and behavior change, The Natural Diet shows readers not simply what they should do, but how to make healthier choices part of real life—and make them last.
The interview
Why do you write in the genre that you do?
I spent many years working with patients who wanted to lose weight and improve their health. What I learned is that telling people what they should do is the easy part. Most people already know they should eat better and be more active. The difficult part is figuring out how to do it while dealing with work, family, stress, and everything else that is part of everyday life.
I wrote The Natural Diet because I wanted to take what I had learned from years of clinical work and research and make it useful to people outside a doctor’s office.
How do you name your characters? If you write nonfiction, do you ever change the names of your characters?
Although The Natural Diet is nonfiction, I created a fictional character named Brenda to help tell the story.
Brenda is a busy professional woman in her forties who has a family, an important job, and many of the same pressures people face every day. She has recently been diagnosed with diabetes and has been told she needs to lose weight.
I wanted readers to be able to see themselves in her. Rather than simply giving people a list of instructions, we follow Brenda for 24 weeks as she tries to change. Sometimes she succeeds and sometimes she struggles. I think that makes the science and recommendations much more relatable.
Who would you most want to read your book, living or dead?
I would like the book to reach ordinary people who want to live healthier lives but find it increasingly difficult to do so.
We live in an environment where ultra-processed foods are everywhere, much of our day is spent sitting, and work and family pressures leave little time to think about our health. People are constantly being told to eat better, exercise more, and lose weight, but they’re often given very little help figuring out how to make those changes realistic.
Those are the people I wrote the book for.
Have you made any public appearances to promote your book?
The Natural Diet was published on August 18, 2026, so I’m only beginning to do interviews and other appearances to promote it. In the meantime, I’ve been writing regularly on Medium about ultra-processed foods, nutrition, obesity, physical activity, and healthy living, and sharing those articles through Facebook, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn.
What are your passions or interests outside of writing?
I try to live by the principles I teach—eating well, staying active, and continually learning. I’ve summited Mt. Kilimanjaro, experienced life on three continents, and enjoy traveling, diving, reading, playing chess online, and playing pickleball with family and friends.
My writing has also taken me in a very different direction. After The Natural Diet, I wrote a historical novel inspired in part by my upbringing in Uruguay and the story of the German battleship Admiral Graf Spee. It gave me the opportunity to explore history, memory, and the place where I grew up in a completely different way.
How do you measure the success of your writing career?
For me, the most important measure isn’t simply how many books are sold. It’s whether someone reads The Natural Diet and actually changes something in their life.
Maybe that person begins looking at ingredient lists and recognizes ultra-processed foods for the first time. Maybe they start cooking more meals at home, begin walking regularly, or change a habit they’ve struggled with for years.
If readers finish the book believing that healthier living is something they can realistically do—and then begin doing it—I would consider the book a success.
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