{"id":2778,"date":"2018-11-01T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2018-11-01T04:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/livehealthymag.com\/?p=2778"},"modified":"2019-02-05T16:46:48","modified_gmt":"2019-02-05T12:46:48","slug":"world-vegan-day-how-one-abu-dhabi-woman-is-healing-her-family-with-a-plant-based-diet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/livehealthymag.com\/world-vegan-day-how-one-abu-dhabi-woman-is-healing-her-family-with-a-plant-based-diet\/","title":{"rendered":"How one Abu Dhabi woman is healing her family with a vegan diet"},"content":{"rendered":"
When Cornelia Baciu\u2019s Emirati husband Hazim Aljaabari was diagnosed with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in 2016, she went very, very deep in finding ways to help him.\u00a0<\/span>COPD is a progressive disease with no cure, and Aljaabari was in the third of four stages. At one point he had to spend three weeks at the Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI was sweating, shaking, I felt so tired and couldn\u2019t move, as I was so weak. I can\u2019t imagine how hard it must have been for my wife, my son and my family,\u201d he is recorded saying on the hospital’s website.<\/span><\/p>\n Although Baciu says she and Aljaabari were overweight \u201ccouch potatoes, meat-eating, cheese-eating rodents\u201d before his diagnosis, she soon found herself searching for the best diets to manage his COPD. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt was a really difficult situation for us,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a life-threatening disease. If you don\u2019t manage it, it progresses.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The 39-year-old Romanian, who has a background in the military, languages, communication, illustration and design and who came to the UAE 11 years ago to study Arabic, \u00a0stumbled upon a plant-based nutrition certificate program from Cornell University and decided to go for it.<\/span><\/p>\n