“Doctor, Friend, Advocate”
Dr. Canelo is a dedicated Primary Care Physician with a comprehensive and holistic approach to care. He is known by his colleagues and patients for providing outpatient care at a high level of detail and complexity, as well as for his curiosity, positivity, and enthusiasm. He believes in the healing potential of lifestyle interventions and evidence-based alternative medicine.
Dr. Canelo was born and raised in Montclair, New Jersey. He is a graduate of Brown University where he completed the Program in Liberal Medical Education (PLME), a highly competitive eight-year track that combines undergraduate education and medical school. During his time at Brown, he majored in Anthropology and began exploring the field of Integrative Medicine. He matched into his first choice residency program at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Family Medicine Residency Program. While at UCSD, he completed additional training in Integrative Medicine and received the prestigious Resident Teacher Award. Dr. Canelo earned his board certification in Family Medicine in 2018.
Dr. Canelo is the founder of the Perlman Clinic’s Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) Program. The program pairs real-time glucose insights with physician counseling to help patients improve their metabolic health. He believes CGM is only as useful as the counseling around it – without a thoughtful process, the data can overwhelm patients and create more anxiety than insight. He is also a member of the Perlman Clinic Weight Management team, where he helps patients achieve sustainable weight loss, primarily using GLP-1 medications alongside lifestyle change. He offers telemedicine visits for both CGM and weight management, which can be booked at wellness.perlmanclinic.com/schedule.
Outside of practicing medicine, Dr. Canelo sings and plays acoustic and electric guitar, 12-string guitar, ukulele, and piano. He enjoys skiing, running, and travel. He loves plant-based cooking and trips to the beach with his wife Elena and French Bulldog Yoda.
Dr. Canelo sees patients via telemedicine on Mondays and Tuesdays and in-person at the La Jolla office on Thursdays. He is currently accepting new primary care patients on a limited basis: new patient appointments are in-person only, Thursday mornings, and typically book several months in advance.