A good friend of mine who has worked in the NHS all of his life
contested the value of the LCHF diet that I have been advocating for all of the
last 6 months.
He is convinced that the knowledge of the dieticians that advise him at
work is stronger than my flimsy base of knowledge supporting low carbohydrate
diets as a cure for obesity or diabetes.
He quoted the years of research behind their advice; and he referred to
their dedication and career-long commitment to public health. I care
about the same issues, but who am I (a computer science graduate with a perhaps
faddish interest in public health) to suggest that they might be so badly
wrong? I knew that my friend was unaware of the time that I have spent
researching the latest science on this subject, and there were more
interesting things for the boys and I to chat about.
It would have been just plain rude of me to suggest in the local pub
that my friend and his advisors might be wrong. So obviously I shut up about
the diet thing and got my round in.
This situation reminded me of a video of a presentation by Jeff Volek
that I watched he other night. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GC1vMBRFiwE
This was a fascinating talk from the man who really got the whole LCHF
movement rolling with solid research and wrote (with Stephen
Phinney) The Art and Science of Low Carbohydrate Living,
this is perhaps the holy bible of the LCHF movement.
The presentation was quite simply the best introduction to the subject
that I have ever seen; I would encourage all parents, teachers, dieticians,
doctors and ministers to watch this video.
A great observation near the start of the presentation was this:
New theories have 4 stages of acceptance:
1: This is worthless nonsense.
2) This is an interesting, but perverse point of view.
3) This is true, but quit unimportant.
4) I always said so.
The greatest challenge is not to convince one person that they could
change their live with a change of diet; this has been done thousands of times
and Jane is doing this with her clients regularly. No, the big challenge is to
find a way of helping trusted clinicians, advisors and even governments to
change the beliefs that they have held though their careers. It is a much
greater dilemma than mine for a GP to change the advice that she gives to
her patients , even when she suspects that the new advice is right.
This is referred to by Volek and Phinney as the Warren and Marshall
Syndrome (after two Australian scientists who proved that ulcers were created
by bacterial infection rather than too much stomach acid. Despite the glaring
truth doctors continued to prescribe antacid drugs for several years. They were
later given a Nobel prize). Faced with undeniable proof that a
better cause of treatment exists, doctors (just like anyone else) will be very
slow to ditch the habits of a lifetime, to in effect admit that they and the
medical establishment were wrong.
Now multiply my dilemma to the huge responsibility faced by governments
and their advisors when it comes to advising us as to as what we should eat.
- We know that the current
advice is not working.
- We are only in power for the
next 4 years
- We have heard that there is
a much better and safer course to steer.
- No one likes to be told that
they are wrong.
- Who do we trust?
Here is my advice. Trust what works. Ignore the lack of full
double-blind randomised controlled trials; only the drug companies sponsor this
kind of research nowadays and they are simply not interested in proving that
they are wrong, it would probably lead to costly law suits. There is no good
science either to justify the current nutritional advice that has led to the
obesity epidemic.
Trust the diabetics who are no longer reliant on drugs. Trust the obese
patients who have their lives back. Eat Real Food, not synthetic crap made of
sugar. Trust Tim Noakes! And then when we are older and this is all in the
past, make sure that he is given a Nobel prize.
No comments:
Post a Comment