A medical crisis changed Dr. Roni DeLuz-Singleton’s life, which she has spent dedicated to helping others in the health and wellness field. Although today a prominent traditional holistic naturopath, and leading detoxification and longevity specialist, she started in conventional, Western medicine as a nurse working in prestigious hospitals around the country. But in 2006, when running three nursing facilities simultaneously, Dr. Roni was suddenly and completely stopped in her tracks by what was then a newly emerging and unknown syndrome: chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia. A lot of allopathic doctors didn’t even believe in it, despite the symptoms she and countless others were suffering, including pain overtaking their entire bodies, debilitating exhaustion, and brain fog, among other detrimental effects.
“I literally thought I was dying,” she says. “I went to over 25 to 30 doctors, to no avail.” After about a year in bed, she says, “I made a promise to God that if he made me well, I would go back and dedicate my entire life to healing people until my very last breath.” It was after this that she started to pivot for help from holistic medicine, and began working with a colon therapist and through her, an herbalist, and others.
“I went to chiropractors, acupuncturists, and a naturopath,” Dr. Roni says. “Back then, naturopathic doctors were rare. That man helped me so much, by talking about detoxing — eating for your blood type, supplements, essential oils, and ozone and stem cell therapy — alternative methods, which back then I couldn’t even explain. Remember this was some 36 years ago. But after about a year, it was like the lights went on in my body.”
So Dr. Roni, as she prefers to be called, returned to school and became a naturopathic doctor, earned a Ph.D., and gained multiple certifications, including as a colon and ozone therapist, and hypnotist. “I got every possible certification because I had a new life. The leading thing that made me well was detoxing, getting the right nutrients, and eating the right food. As simple as that sounds, it saved my life. Let food be your medicine and medicine be your food,” she says. This realization would eventually change the course of her professional pursuits.
Dr. Roni landed here in 1992, on the recommendation of a friend who had told her that “Martha’s Vineyard is a healing Island.” Raising her two children here, Dr. Roni has been part of the Vineyard ever since. “Although I originally worked at the Martha’s Vineyard Nursing and Rehab Center for four years, I couldn’t stop thinking about what had gotten me well. Everything said, You have to go back to what got you healthy. You are a holistic practitioner. That’s what saved your life, and that’s what you went back to school to become. That’s when I started opening up my home, and running retreats focused on immune-enhancing nutrient protocols.”
It turns out that in the process of detoxing to help the body heal from chronic illness, patients were not just getting better but also losing weight. In 2007, Dr. Roni was persuaded to share her approach, and advised to write a book, “21 Pounds in 21 Days: The Martha’s Vineyard Diet Detox,” which, with the help of her co-author, became a New York Times bestseller. Although Dr. Roni had agreed reluctantly to market her detox approach as a diet, it turned out that people with chronic illnesses were seemingly coming out of the woodwork. “And I help people to this day with some of the most serious health issues that we face: Lyme disease, cancer, post-stroke and post–heart attack challenges, colon issues, and more.”
Dr. Roni opened H.E.A.L.E.D. Therapy center on Main Street in Vineyard Haven in 2010, and extended over the years from technology geared toward helping you lose weight to innovative wellness and longevity approaches using a hyperbaric oxygen chamber, ozone treatments, stem cell and exosomes therapy, senolytic therapy, photobiomodulation, and other protocols. “I was always on the cutting edge, working with alternative approaches when people had no idea what they were. Nowadays, it’s about whole-body medicine, about treating at the cellular level, which is different from treating a specific organ, like the allopathic approach,” she says.
Ever interested in increasing her ability to assist others, Dr. Roni is now partnering with BioMed Center, a group of medical facilities in Scottsdale, Ariz., and Providence, R.I., where she can refer patients, or they can be treated through telehealth services. BioMed specializes in bioenergetic medicine — an alternative approach inspired by the European biological medicine model, paired with modern, technology-backed tools, and is a perfect complement to Dr. Roni’s nutrient education, detox guidance, and lifestyle expertise. With the name change of the center to Vineyard Longevity, and her partnership with BioMed, Dr. Roni has intensified her ability to serve locals and visitors. Dr. Roni explains, “This will be the perfect fit for helping those who are near and dear. What did I say? If you give me my life back, God, I will do everything in my power to stay healthy and work until my last breath helping people. And I have never stopped.”
For more information about Vineyard Longevity, visit drronideluz.com.
