About us
Wendy Walrabenstein
Registered nutritionist and researcher
After studying economics, Wendy worked in international finance for 15 years. After this, she became a registered dietitian and wrote the Dutch book Food Body Mind. As a PhD student at Amsterdam UMC, she conducted the research Plants for Joints at Reade in Amsterdam with Carlijn Wagenaar and a team of health professionals under the supervision of Prof. Dirkjan van Schaardenburg. Wendy will soon receive her PhD and is also a board member of the Physicians Association for Nutrition in the Netherlands and USA.
Carlijn Wagenaar
Medical doctor and researcher
After a childhood centered around sports in the United States, Carlijn studied medicine in Groningen, the Netherlands, where she completed an honors program and worked as a research assistant. Before graduation, she had joined the Plants for Joints team, first working as a research associate and later as a doctoral student in 2021 after completing medical school. She is also a board member of the Physicians Association for Nutrition in the Netherlands.
Prof. Dirkjan Van Schaardenburg
Rheumatologist and emeritus professor
In my years of practice as a rheumatologist, I saw that patients often suffered from medication side effects. Many of my patients didn’t want to take the medication at all, but often there is no other choice. As a result, for years I’ve been interested in other ways to treat rheumatic diseases. For osteoarthritis, there weren’t many treatment options except for painkillers.
Meanwhile, after many years of scientific research, the Plants for Health program was developed. The results are very encouraging and we get a lot of positive feedback from research participants. I am therefore pleased that we will soon be able to start offering this program.
Another aspect is that this makes an important contribution to reducing healthcare costs.