Big fat lies – why do health professionals continue to dish out advice about fat that is not supported by science?
Posted on 8 November 2006
Despite my leanings towards natural medicine, I still read conventional medical journals each week, including the British Medical Journal. Over the last few weeks this journal has been running a series of articles about obesity that will be published next year as a book geared towards the education of medical professionals.
This week
Published November 8, 2006 . Filed under: Food and Medical Politics, Low-Carbohydrate/Carbohydrate Restriction, Weight Loss
This brings a smile to my otherwise generally serious demeanor in relation to the whole sad state of things ..
A truly inspiring blog. Once I twigged just how commercial interests skew both the presentation and application of ‘science’ I became skeptical about just everything.
I’m far from harbouring anti-capitalist tendencies and generally support the notion of entirely free market economies. However, the inherent fault in such economic and political models is that many people have to place their trust in other folks on the payroll of commercial enterprises who are simply out to make a ‘buck’ out of the many and without any regard for their welfare.
The free-market system would be fine if governments recognised it’s weaknesses and invested in non-biased research truly in pursuit of knowledge to counter the field-tipping of commercially funded research, and if said governments managed those regulators they appoint more effectively.
So, after Ancel Keys sowed the seed of sat-fat phobia more than 50 years ago and despite the plethora of ‘low fat’ products directed at (and consumed by) consumers we face a rapidly accelerating rise of obesity and diabetes (T2) rates. How can it be?
After Ancel Keys fallacious work and the notion that ‘fat must make us fat’, then with the advent of TV as the vehicle for commercial enterprises to truly promote the deception through advertising and direct consumers to become habituated to ‘low fat products’ a truly lucrative feedback loop is created to serve the interests for profit of those business offering this crap to the consumer.
Just why those appointed to serve the interests of the people of this nation cannot re-trace the steps leading to our modernity and, given a systemic understanding of the workings of the human body, can’t work out what is leading to the nations ill health in terms of, but not necessarily limited to, obesity and diabetes, is beyond me.
The obesity problem must be largely down to the ‘convenience factor’ and the ‘snack factor’. Many folks have simply become to accustomed to convenient food supplying convenient energy of high GL as supplied by refined and simple carbohydrates and seriously lacking the micro-nutrient content that might otherwise be provided by a more natural diet incorporating more diversity and more freshly prepared natural produce.
Given adequate exposure to a diet whose properties bear so little resemblance to those that nature intended by virtue of the precedent set by tens of thousands, if not several hundreds of thousands of years, then problems will manifest themselves.
Folks go to the Doc, are recognised as being T2 diabetic, and are likely prescribed prescriptive medication such as Metformin. All very lucrative for the pharmaceuticals industry. All highly costly to the nation. Because not enough is invested in unbiased pursuit of a solution the nation (and other nations) entrusts the provision of solutions to concerns whose interests are to provide profit for shareholders. The rest of your life on Statins and or Metformin? .. Lucrative work for someone. All that is lacking is some appreciation of the pitfalls and some correctly applied research and regulation to attain a balance of power.
.. And if you are in any doubt as to just how disastrous things can get in the light of ineffectual regulation just consider how the unchecked reckless greed and herd mentality of a few selfish folks led to the most recent financial crisis.
All of this may strike a chord with you or jar your nerves; either way both these two references make interesting reading:-
“The Diet Delusion” – Gary Taubes
and
“The Crunch – The Scandal of Northern Rock and the Escalating Credit Crisis” – Alex Brummer.
April 27, 2009 @ 11:03 pm
Professor Lean the Dietician is obviously friends with Mr Bun the Baker. And Mr Balls the would-be Prime Minister.
Follow the money indeed: here’s another useful information source
http://www.fwi.co.uk/prices-trends/
This gives you some idea of what farmers are paid for their output: compare with the prices of the products of the Food Industry, eg. potatoes vs crisps. Low Fat is profitable because it adds cheap sources of starch to replace expensive sources of fats, then charges a premium, so it isnlt going away any time soon.
July 16, 2009 @ 5:03 pm