Our Story

You could say he was born to be a doctor. While living in Enterprise, Utah, young Dr. Howard landed himself in the emergency room (ER) at age 14—and not as a patient. He worked as a volunteer at Pioneer Memorial Medical Center in St. George, Utah, taking vital signs, cleaning up, and gleaning all he could from the hospital environment. At age 15 he was granted special permission to be employed at the Sunrise Hospital & Medical Center in Las Vegas as an orderly in nuclear medicine. Dr. Howard then began volunteering at Dixie Regional Medical Center, logging more than 2,000 volunteer hours by the time he was 16.

At that same age, he was hired as an ER technician at Dixie Regional Medical Center. His desire to become a doctor was cemented by a transformative experience he had there. He recalls a 2-year-old girl coming in on an ambulance. She had spinal meningitis and went into cardiac and respiratory arrest—meaning she wasn’t breathing, and her heart wasn’t pumping. Dr. Howard was the only one there and administered CPR until he could get a team to come and help. “We saved her life,” he says.

He’ll never forget a woman walking into the ER with her little girl about a year later. “See that man right there?” the woman said, pointing to Dr. Howard. “That’s the one that saved your life.”

“I was done. That’s what I was gonna do for the rest of my life.” 

Avid in the pursuit of a medical career, Dr. Howard was even given a special waiver by the governor to receive his EMT certification before the age of 18. That was just the beginning.

Dr. Howard’s deep love of health and of people never dimmed. In fact, further experiences would only illuminate his desire to help those around him. He studied pre-med at Dixie State College of Utah and went on to earn his Doctor of Chiropractic degree at Cleveland Chiropractic College in 1986, after which he practiced chiropractic in Salt Lake City for several years. It was in Russia, though, that his area of medical interest would come into sharp focus.

While earning his medical degree from Pavlov First Medical Institute in St. Petersburg, Dr. Howard’s thoughts began to turn more and more to nutrition. It was the first time in his life he had witnessed firsthand the effect of socioeconomic diseases (diseases caused by social or economic status, not just germ theory). The Iron Curtain had only recently fallen. Most of the people of Russia were very poor at the time, many living on black bread and water. It became clear to Dr. Howard that those who could afford, buy, or raise fruits and vegetables were healthy—and those who could not, were sick. The line was distinctive.

His interest in nutrition had peaked upon returning from Russia. Dr. Howard began looking into vitamins in an effort to find a solution. The more he studied, the more he got lost in all of the contradictory information. That’s when he discovered phytochemicals—the chemicals found in plants! It was at this time he realized where he could find the solution he had been searching for: fruits and vegetables! 

It was a time when research on phytochemicals was just beginning and super fruits and super pills were jumping at consumers from all sides. Finally, Dr. Howard realized that there are hundreds of thousands of phytochemicals, some discovered and others yet to be discovered, and this would never stop as long as people looked at things in this light. This thought coupled with his experience in Russia brought him to the epiphany that all of the “super” chemicals were being extracted from fruits and vegetables.

Through eating enough whole fruits and vegetables, he knew, people would keep their bodies in balance while getting all of the phytochemicals they need in the proper ratio.

Today, Dr. Howard continues to care about helping people. He is one of the leading researchers in phytonutrition, frequently making guest appearances on talk shows, podcasts, and other media. He continues to research and lecture around the world.