Have you or someone you care about ever asked your doctor: What is the cure for type 2 diabetes? Or this: What can I do to get off all of these diabetes drugs?
If you ask your doctor these kinds of questions, and if they tell you that there is nothing you can do about it, (except perhaps a vague suggestion to make “diet and lifestyle” changes), and that type 2 diabetes is a life sentence of diabetes drugs, insulin, and all of the complications and sickness that comes with type 2 diabetes and the diabetes drugs, ask a different doctor the same questions.
More specifically, ask a board-certified medical doctor who is an expert in nutrition and who has personal, first-hand experience and expertise in the power of the right nutrition to prevent and reverse disease and illnesses, including type 2 diabetes.
The board-certified medical doctors listed below have helped hundreds and even thousands of people reverse their type 2 diabetes, so that in most cases patients who follow their advice are able to get off all of the diabetes drugs and insulin, as well as high blood pressure medications, cholesterol medications, and others, in addition to reversing their type 2 diabetes.
Reversing Type 2 Diabetes: Here are just a few of the top experts in nutrition who also are board certified medical doctors.
Collectively (and individually) these board certified medical doctors have many decades of experience helping thousands of people reverse type 2 diabetes. Read on below to learn more about each of these medical doctors.
Dr. Joel Fuhrman (author of the End of Diabetes, Eat to Live and many more)
Dr. John McDougall
Dr. Neal Barnard (author of Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes, 21-Day Weight Loss Kickstart and more)
Dr. Terry Shintani (M.D., J.D., Harvard M.P.H., K.C.S.J and best-selling author)
Dr. Kim A. Williams (M.D., Trustee and Former President of the American College of Cardiology (2015-2016). Head of cardiology at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, IL. Dr. Williams also has served as chairman of the board of the Association of Black Cardiologists, among other positions. Dr. Williams often speaks about the power of whole food plant-based foods to reverse type 2 diabetes in addition to preventing and reversing heart disease.)
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr. (M.D., Yale graduate, Olympic Gold Medalist, best-selling author)
Dr. Michael Klaper
Dr. Alan Goldhamer
Dr. Anthony Lim (M.D. and Harvard J.D.)
Dr. Baxter D. Montgomery
Dr. Steve Lawenda
Dr. Laurie Marbas
Dr. Matt Lederman
Dr. Alona Pulde
Dr. Roy Artal (M.D., UCLA School of Medicine, affiliated with Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, CA, triple board-certified in Pulmonology, Sleep Disorders and Internal Medicine).
Dr. Andrea Avery, MD, Internal Medicine Physician and Professor of Medicine at University of California, Irvine
This is just an initial list that includes some of the top nutritional experts worldwide who also are U.S. board certified medical doctors (having earned their medical degrees from some of the best medical schools).
Also: Hans Diehl, DrHSc, MPH, FACN, program founder and Clinical Professor of Preventative Medicine at Loma Linda University (read more about Dr. Diehl and the Complete Health Improvement Program (“CHIP”) at the Lifestyle Medicine Institute below.
We will continue to add more U.S. board-certified medical doctors to this list.
These medical doctors have practical experience helping people reverse their type 2 diabetes as well as heart disease and many other illnesses and diseases, all through the exact same method: switching to whole food plant-based nutrition.
Many of these doctors have written excellent books on the topic of reversing type 2 diet, (for example, Dr. Fuhrman’s The End of Diabetes), and have online programs to help people with the specific “how to do this” step-by-step guidance.
One of these medical doctors, Dr. Steve Lawenda, not only helps his patients prevent and reverse type 2 diabetes through whole food plant-based nutrition, but he himself reversed his pre-diabetes and no longer is obese since he made these nutritional changes for his own life.
Listen to these board-certified medical doctors (Youtube videos); watch them speak about their patients reversing type 2 diabetes and getting off all of their medications; read the books these doctors have written; visit their websites for more information about their medical practices, as well as their weight loss programs, events, free online programs and more.
Watch the documentaries in which type 2 diabetic patients reverse their type 2 diabetes and usually get off all of the drugs, along with reversing heart disease and other illnesses and disease.
For example, watch the film documentaries Forks Over Knives, What the Health and PlantPure Nation.
In Forks Over Knives, watch Joey Aucoin’s transformation from being type 2 diabetic and taking many diabetes and other drugs that were making him feel awful, to reversing his type 2 diabetes and getting off all of his medications under the supervision of Dr. Matt Lederman and Dr. Aona Pulde.
The medical doctors featured here are experts in the power of whole food plant-based nutrition to prevent and reverse disease and illnesses, often very quickly, within weeks or even days, including reversal of type 2 diabetes in most cases, when a person switches to whole food plant-based foods for their health for life.
Dr. Anthony Lim
Dr. Lim is a board-certified family physician and is the Medical Director of the McDougall Health & Medical Center in Santa Rosa, California. Dr. Lim also is associated as a medical doctor with the TrueNorth Health Center. Dr. Lim received his undergraduate degree in Human Biology from Stanford University. He earned his law degree from Harvard University Law School, and is a member of the California State Bar. He earned his medical degree from the Boston University School of Medicine. Dr. Lim’s life mission is to help people prevent and reverse disease, including type 2 diabetes, heart disease, auto-immune conditions and more, through whole food plant-based nutrition.
Dr. Joel Fuhrman
Dr. Joel Fuhrman is a board certified family physician and author of many world-wide best selling excellent books on the power of whole food plant-based nutrition — “nutritarian” nutrient-dense foods — to heal, cure, prevent, and reverse illnesses and disease.
Dr. Fuhrman has written many best-selling, life-changing, life-saving books about whole food plant-based nutrition for preventing and reversing disease and illnesses, including Eat to Live, the End of Dieting, and the End of Diabetes, among many other best sellers.
Dr. Fuhrman was one of the top ice skaters in the U.S. before he attended medical school. He has first-hand experience with the power of whole food plant-based nutrition to fuel top athletes for strength and endurance.
Dr. Fuhrman’s work has inspired other medical doctors to also become experts in nutrition.
For example, both Dr. Anthony Lim and Dr. Steve Lawenda first learned about the healing power of whole food plant-based nutrition by accidentally hearing Dr. Fuhrman speak.
Dr. Lim happened to turn the channel to find one of Dr. Fuhrma’s PBS shows; the next day he got Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live and read it from cover to cover.
Dr. Lawenda’s wife played Dr. Fuhrman’s audio book version of Eat to Live on a long drive home from a family vacation.
Dr. Laurie Marabas read Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live after she searched for ways to learn more about whole food plant-based nutrition. She had witnessed her patients reverse diseases (including lupus) very quickly (in under 30 days) after switching to a whole food plant-based diet. Dr. Marabas later worked with Dr. Fuhrman as Medical Director of Dr. Fuhrman’s Health Oasis in Boca Raton, Florida.
Discovering Dr. Fuhrman’s work was life-changing for Dr. Lim, for Dr. Lawenda, and Dr. Marabas, among many others, and also contributed to these medical doctors changing the focus and direction and mission of their medical careers.
Watch Dr. Fuhrman’s PBS show (below), in which he describes just a few examples of people who have reversed their type 2 diabetes and gotten off all of their medications by following his nutritarian diet.
“Nutritarian” is a term Dr. Fuhrman coined, which means choosing foods that have the highest nutrients per calorie, and avoiding foods that have low nutrient density – like junk foods, processed foods, and oils, for example. Learn all about nutritarian, whole food plant-based nutrition (along with delicious recipes) in Dr. Fuhrman’s life-changing book, Eat to Live.
Watch Dr. Fuhrman’s PBS presentation, “End Dieting Forever,” here:
In Dr. Fuhrman’s presentation above, watch at 29:57, where Dr. Fuhrman shows Before and After photos of a woman named Laura, from Missouri, who watched one of Dr. Fuhrman’s previous PBS shows, and learned for the first time that type 2 diabetes is reversible with whole foods plant-based nutrition. Laura read Dr. Fuhrman’s book The End of Diabetes, changed the foods she ate following Dr. Fuhrman’s guidance in the book, and reversed her type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Fuhrman is featured in numerous documentaries about preventing and reversing disease with whole food plant-based nutrition.
Just to list a few examples, Dr. Fuhrman is featured in the documentary films, Eating You Alive, Vegucated, and To Your Health, and Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days, among others.
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Jr.
Dr. Esselstyn formerly was a heart surgeon but now he instead specializes in preventing and reversing heart disease through whole food plant-based foods (no oil added). Along with reversing heart disease, type 2 diabetic patients often reverse their type 2 diabetes). Watch the documentary Forks Over Knives to see Dr. Esselstyn’s formerly diabetic patient’s health transformation as she reversed her type 2 diabetes. Read about how Dr. Esselstyn helped her reverse her type 2 diabetes here.
Dr. Steve Lawenda
Dr. Steve Lawenda is a board certified family physician with Kaiser Permanente in Southern California. In his earlier years as a medical doctor, he himself was obese and diagnosed with pre-diabetes. His father had suffered from type 2 diabetes and had amputations due to type 2 diabetes complications, before Dr. Lawenda had learned about the power of whole food plant-based nutrition to reverse type 2 diabetes.
Out of the blue, someone gave Dr. Lawenda’s wife an audio book version of Dr. Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live, and she played the audio book over the car speakers while Dr. Lawenda drove the family home from a vacation. This fortuitous timing, playing the audio book during a long drive so that Dr. Lawenda could also hear it while his wife listened to the Eat to Live audio book, turned out to be life-changing both for Dr. Lawenda himself, and later, for his patients, thanks to what he learned from Dr. Furhman’s audio book, Eat to Live. Read more here about Dr. Lawenda’s own health transformation and how he helps his patients reverse type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Baxter D. Montgomery
Dr. Montgomery specializes in internal medicine, clinical cardiac electrophysiology, internal medicine, and cardiovascular disease. He also is the owner of the Houston Cardiac Association and the founder of Montgomery Health & Wellness in Houston, Texas. Dr. Montgomery is a plant-based doctor who has helped his patients reverse their type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and prevent and reverse illness and disease with a whole food plant-based diet. Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, Dr. Montgomery’s patients come to him with a range of conditions including type 2 diabetes, as well as arrhythmias and coronary disease. He performs angiography, defibrillator implants, and other hospital procedures, and teaches young physicians; for many years now Dr. Montgomery also teaches his patients how to prevent and REVERSE heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and so many other chronic diseases, all using the exact same method, switching to a whole food plant-based diet.
He is the author of The Food Prescription for Better Health: A Cardiologist’s Proven Method to Reverse Heart Disease, Diabetes, Obesity, and other Chronic Illnesses, Naturally!
In 2008, he created a one-month Nutritional Bootcamp (located where he practices medicine, in Texas) to help people reverse their type 2 diabetes, reverse heart disease, reduce cholesterol, and lose weight. Dr. Montgomery’s Nutritional Bootcamps still are being offered today, and people who attend get phenomenal results, such as reversal of most chronic health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, high cholesterol and others, reduction or elimination of the need for medications, improved work, sexual and exercise performance, significant healthcare savings and much more.
Dr. John McDougall
Dr. John McDougall is a board-certified doctor of internal medicine who has decades of experience helping people prevent and reverse disease. He also is a best-selling author and speaker, and he is one of the leading experts in nutrition. He began his career as a medical doctor in Hawaii, then moved his medical practice to California.
Dr. McDougall founded the McDougall Health & Medical Center in Santa Rosa, California, where people can go in person for a 3-Day Program, a 10-Day Live-In Program and other health programs that help people to lose weight and/or prevent and reverse disease through whole food plant-based nutrition for life. Dr. McDougall’s website also offers a completely FREE online weight loss program, complete with a free 10-Day Meal Plan/recipes. Dr. McDougall has excellent Youtube videos on many health and nutrition topics.
Dr. Dougall ate the standard American diet during his early years (as Dr. McDougall describes it, “I lived on steak and eggs”), and suffered a massive stroke at the age of 18. When he was in his 20’s he worked as a plantation doctor in Hawaii, and noticed that the elderly people he treated (immigrants who ate culturally traditional diets centered around rice) maintained better health than did their children and grandchildren.
Dr. McDougall began to study the scientific findings of early whole food plant-based pioneers such as Nathan Pritikin and Walter Kempner, MD (Duke University), which confirmed Dr. McDougall’s observations about the powerful connection between diet and disease. Dr. McDougall switched to whole food plant-based nutrition and stopped eating meat and dairy. He felt so good eating whole food plant-based foods, including starchy vegetables, that he advised his patients to do the same.
While Dr. McDougall recently retired from full-time medical practice (in May 2018), he will continue to write books, speak at events, and participate in legislative work relating to nutrition and health, and he will continue to visit with people attending the 3-Day and 10-Day programs at the McDougall Health & Medical Center. Dr. Anthony Lim now is the Medical Director overseeing the McDougall Health & Medical Center.
Dr. Michael Klaper
Dr. Michael Klaper is a medical doctor at TrueNorth Health Center who helps people prevent and reverse diseases, including type 2 diabetes, through a whole food plant-based diet. Dr. Klaper also specializes in medical supervision of water-only fasting at the TrueNorth Health Center in California.
Dr. Alan Goldhamer
Dr. Alan Goldhamer is a medical doctor at TrueNorth Health Center.
He is a founder of the TrueNorth Health center.
Dr. Terry Shintani
Dr. Terry Shintani of Hawaii is an American plant-based physician and author who has seriously impressive credentials: he earned his master’s degree in nutrition at Harvard, and he earned both his M.D. (medical doctor) and J.D. (law degree) from the University of Hawaii, as well as his M.P.H. (master’s degree in public health), and K.C.S.J. In Dr. Shintani’s many roles as physician, attorney, nutritionist, professor at the University of Hawaii School of Medicine, author (for example, “Eat More Weigh Less® Diet”, “The Hawaii Diet” and “The Peace Diet™), lecturer, radio show host and community advocate in Hawaii. He also is the Director of Prevention Medicine at the Waianae Coast Comprehensive Health Center. Dr. Shintani’s life work was celebrated in Hawaii when he was formally designated a “Living Treasure of Hawaii” thanks to his contributions to the community in the fields of medicine, law, traditional healing arts, and cultural preservation. Dr. Shintani also holds many philanthropic positions, including, for example, Chair of the Advisory Board of the Gandhi International Institute of Peace. He is the Founding President of the Hawaii health Foundation
Dr. Laurie Marbas
Dr. Laurie Marbas is a board certified family medicine physician and is board certified in lifestyle medicine. She has used a whole foods plant-based diet with her patients for the past six years in rural Colorado, and as the former Medical Director for Dr. Fuhrman’s Health Oasis in Boca Raton, Florida. Dr. Marbas is the host of the How to Health podcast, and her website offers online self-guided classes for people who want to transition to a whole foods plant-based diet. Her website also has many resources for parents to help their kids eat healthier too! She also working with Chef Martin Oswald on a new project called Doc and Chef, bringing even more delicious flavor to health.
Dr. Marbas discovered the power of whole food plant-based nutrition to heal and reverse disease by accident, by observing her patient switch to whole food plant-based foods for a month, along with the patient’s 16-year-old daughter. Both Dr. Marbas’ patient and the patient’s daughter experienced remarkable results and were able to get off medications.
Next, Dr. Marbas wanted to see if a whole food plant-based diet could help a different patient who was suffering with lupus: the patient switched to whole food plant-based nutrition and reversed her lupus. Dr. Marbas saw the light, clearly, and she began searching everywhere to learn how to do this as a doctor, how to use whole food plant-based nutrition to help people prevent and reverse disease. She has said that, at the time, she felt “literally like the lone voice in the forest”… she had no one to turn to … until she found Dr. John McDougall, Dr. Neal Barnard, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, and she began “devouring their books.” She went to the Cleveland Clinic to spend time with Dr. Esselstyn to learn even more. She went to meet Dr. Barnard and joined PCRM’s Food for Life training course.
Dr. Marbas has described how since she had no local dietician with whole food plant-based expertise, as Dr. Marbas worked with her patients, she was presenting to them the power of whole food plant-based nutrition at every opportunity she could. Over the course of nine months she also typed up everything she was learning about what worked as a 30-page handout.
In the mornings she would go through her list of patients for the day, including type 2 diabetics, so she knew in advance to whom she would present the information, highlighter in hand, so that she could begin that conversation when they walked in the door.
Dr. Marbas describes her own typewritten handout as having been instrumental in making the transition easier for her patients, because she had a step-by-step “HOW TO DO IT” handout to give each of them. Her handout shows what to buy (even where to go in the Walmart, as well as grocery stores, and places with limited food choices); which aisles to go down.
Her typewritten 30-page handout helped Dr. Marbas’ patients get “some really amazing results.”
For her patients with pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes, Dr. Marbas helps them to transition to a plant-based diet. She applies what she learned from Dr. John McDougall as well as from Dr. Fuhrman’s books (for example The End of Diabetes, and Eat to Live).
As Dr. Marbas notes, “They don’t teach you how to STOP medications [in med school], so I had to kind of gather what I could in bits and pieces from Dr. McDougall and Dr Fuhrman’s books.” She says that a third of the patients she sees every day are either pre-diabetic or type 2 diabetic, along with some type 1 diabetics. She teaches her patients that if they are on insulin or any types of medications, she and the patient will have to be very careful as they transition to whole food plant-based nutrition.
As Dr. Marbas explained in a recent interview, when her patients switch to whole food plant-based foods full-force, she usually cuts their insulin dose in half so that the blood sugars won’t get too low. She noted that hypertension medications also usually need to be adjusted and reduced when and to the extent the switch to a whole food plant-based diet makes the them unnecessary. (It would be dangerous to continue taking these medications when and to the extent they are no longer needed.)
Read more here about Doctor Marbas and learn how she discusses whole food plant-based nutrition with her type 2 diabetic patients, and how she discusses with them their options and choices. Dr. Marbas’ advice for anyone who has just learned about this whole food plant-based lifestyle, and wants to make these changes, is that they need to do this safely under their doctor’s supervision in order to reduce or eliminate the medications when and to the extent necessary as they medications no longer are needed.
Dr. Marbas suggests that type 2 diabetics making this change can tell their doctor that they are going to really start eating healthy foods and start exercising, and that they are going to need some help from their doctor with the medications to make sure that they are making these “diet and lifestyle changes” safely.
Dr. Marbas also highly recommends that both patients who are type 2 diabetics and their doctors should read these books:
Dr. Joel Furhman’s books (including The End of Diabetes, and Eat to Live among many other best sellers)
Dr. Neal Barnard’s book, Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes
Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn’s book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure
The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, pHd
How can medical doctors (or anyone) learn more about the power of whole food plant-based nutrition to prevent and reverse disease and illnesses, including type 2 diabetes?
For doctors and others who want to learn more about the healing and preventative power of whole food plant-based nutrition, there are excellent programs available, including programs for which doctors can earn continuing education credit.
A few such programs include:
The Plant Certificate Program at Cornell University online (eCornell.com)
The annual International Plant-Based Conference hosted by the Plantrician Project. The International Plant-Based Conference offers doctors the opportunity to learn from top medical experts in the field of nutrition about the role of whole food plant-based foods in preventing and reversing disease and illnesses, including reversing type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Neal Barnard/PCRM’s Food for Life training course. (This is a course that Dr. Laurie Marbas attended.)
In a recent interview, Dr. Lim was asked about whether he is optimistic about other medical doctors learning and applying whole food plant-based nutrition, since he himself experienced such a transformation in his own medical thinking and practice. Here is Dr. Lim’s reply:
Yes. I tend to be an optimistic person by nature, but also I have some evidence to back it up. One of the things I point to is the number of Kaiser healthcare providers who have attended The International Plant-Based Conference put on by the Plantrician Project that is now in its fourth year. The first year it was held, there were less than 5 Kaiser employees that came. The second year, which was in 2014, the same year that my father and I first attended the conference together, there were around 40 Kaiser people. Last year, in 2015, there were almost 100 Kaiser providers! So, in the space of three years we’ve gone from 5 to 40 to 100 Kaiser employees, and who knows how many there will be this year. So it definitely strikes me as a movement that is rapidly picking up momentum.
One interesting thing to note is that among the 100 people that came this past year, virtually all the medical specialties were represented. For example, at a special dinner held during the conference for the Kaiser folks, I just happened to sit at a table with a pulmonologist, a psychiatrist, a nephrologist, and an internist, and then there was myself from family medicine. On top of that, multiple disciplines were represented. In addition to Kaiser Permanente physicians, there were Kaiser nurses, nurse practitioners, registered dietitians, occupational therapists, social workers, and more. It is trends such as this that I have witnessed in just a couple of years that give me great cause for optimism.
More Resources: Dr. Fuhrman’s Step-by-Step Proven Method to Reverse Type 2 Diabetes
“The End of Diabetes by Dr. Joel Fuhrman
More than a thousand people have written book review testimonials about how they reversed their type 2 diabetes after reading Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book, The End of Diabetes. In these book reviews, people give detailed descriptions of how they got off all of the diabetes drugs after reading The End of Diabetes and applying what they learned from the book, switching to eating an abundance of delicious whole food plant-based (no oil added) foods. No weighing, no measuring, no calorie counting, not feeling hungry because this food is rich in nutrients and fiber and fills your stomach completely.
In addition, programs like CHIP are available to individuals and employers to help people improve their health and reverse disease including diabetes. Read about Hans Diehl, DrHSc, MPH, FACN, program founder and Clinical Professor of Preventative Medicine at Loma Linda University, founder of
The Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) . . . an affordable, lifestyle enrichment program designed to reduce disease risk factors through the adoption of better health habits and appropriate lifestyle modifications. The goal is to lower blood cholesterol, hypertension, and blood sugar levels and reduce excess weight. This is done by improving dietary choices, enhancing daily exercise, increasing support systems and decreasing stress, thus aiding in preventing and reversing disease.” Learn more about Complete Health Improvement Program (CHIP) at the Lifestyle Medicine Institute here.
More Type 2 Diabetes Reversal Success Stories
Dr. Steve Lawenda is a board-certified medical doctor (Kaiser Permanente, Southern California), who reversed his own pre-diabetes and lost a lot of weight at the same time, six years ago, and he now helps his patients reverse their type 2 diabetes. Learn more about Dr. Lawenda here.
Nick Delgado reversed his type 2 diabetes in his 20s by switching to whole food plant-based foods. Now, over the course of the past 40 years, he has helped more than 4,000 people reverse their type 2 diabetes. He also holds world records for strength endurance, still winning strength endurance competitions in his 60s over other strong, fit men who are decades younger than him. Read about how Nick Delgado reversed his type 2 diabetes and helps others reverse their type 2 diabetes.
Read about how Jason Mraz Helped His Bandmate Reverse Type 2 Diabetes in Under 30 Days
Read about how Joey Aucoin, a Florida Dad and Business Owner, Reversed Diabetes Naturally in Weeks in the Forks Over Knives documentary
Read about how Jim Balla of Detroit, Michigan reversed his type 2 diabetes in days, and went on to lose 162+ pounds in 22 months.
Learn More: What is the Cure for Type 2 Diabetes?
Read about how a Mebane, North Carolina Woman Reversed Type 2 Diabetes as part of PlantPure Nation
Read about how an Ohio Mother of Five Reversed her Type 2 Diabetes and Reversed Hypertension in Weeks
Read about the powerful testimonials and type 2 diabetes reversal success stories in the Simply Raw: Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days documentary.
Read about Amy Johnson’s type 2 diabetes reversal and 50-pound weight loss from switching to whole food plant-based nutrition six years ago.
The way to reverse type 2 diabetes and to prevent and reverse most of the diseases and illnesses that have become so common is so simple and straightforward. As Dr. McDougall says, “It’s the food!” Whole food plant-based foods are the prevention and the cure for type 2 diabetes as well as many other diseases and sicknesses.
Fortunately, the number of board-certified medical doctors who know the simple and fast cure for type 2 diabetes is growing quickly. This list is just a starting point; there are many doctors still to be listed here.
Leave a Reply