A couple of weeks ago I received this brief email from Brent Pottenger, one of the founders of the Ancestral Health Symposium:
Hey Tom,
I’m sitting in endocrinology now here at Hopkins Med, and our class is watching both Super Size Me and Fat Head as a required activity!
Cheers,
Brent
Seth Roberts also shared this message from Brent on his blog:
Today, as a required activity for our Hopkins Med endocrinology course, we watched excerpts from Supersize Me and Tom Naughton’s Fat Head. Our professor then engaged us in a discussion comparing the two films. Our professor told our class that the lipid hypothesis is incorrect, said that the USDA Food Pyramid is the product of corn and wheat subsidies (and lobbies), and definitely stirred up some uneasy responses from my classmates.
What the professor said contradicted what they believe. Every professor before this has demonized saturated fat, meats, etc., so this was the first time someone questioned that belief.
No surprise there. Seth asked how the med students expressed their unease. Brent replied:
They expressed unease by getting up and leaving the lecture hall, by whispering in disgust to their neighbors, etc. — you could see it on their faces. Then, some of the more curious classmates who are always inquisitive followed up with genuine questions, wanting to know more about the validity to the statements made in Tom’s movie about Ancel Keys, the McGovern Report, the USDA, the science of the lipid hypothesis, etc.
Med students leaving the lecture hall rather than have their beliefs challenged … and you wonder why I don’t trust most doctors. But cheers to the professor for challenging what they’ve already been taught, and cheers to the students who were open-minded.
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1616 A.D.
Professor Galileo: My observations indicate that planets, including Earth, revolve around the Sun.
Audience: Rubbish! I won’t stand for this nonsense. Out of my way, I’m out of here and heading back to selling indulgences….behind quota.
Regarding the recommended diet for a dog with a history if pancreatitis…my dog has Addison’s
disease, and is therefore more likely to have bouts of pancreatitis. The vet recommended a low fat corn-based dog food, with canola oil as the only added fat. He said a fatty or high protein diet will cause him to get pancreatitis.
I fed him the food for a little while, but I knew better. I started feeding him a food consisting of raw meaty bones, veggies, and coconut oil. Now his electrolyte blood tests come out perfect every time, his skin does not flake, he is musular and trim, and has no ‘dog smell’ anymore. His teeth stay cleaner too! No bouts of pancreatitis since the diet change.
Of course the vet thought the change in diet was unrelated. ‘Everyone knows a low-carb diet is bad! He’s doing well despite the diet!’ He still does get an injection every month since his adrenal glands do not make any hormones, but we have not had to adjust his dose since the diet change.
My theory is a high carb diet increases the amount of stress hormone flucuations. I remember Dr. Mary Dan Eades (in Fathead) saying that high blood sugar being an emergency to the body, and when there is an emergency stress hormones are released.
Anyway, I don’t listen to diet advice from my doctor, or from my dog’s doctor. And my dog and I are both healthier for it! It’s too bad doctors cannot think more logically about diet.
Yet another paradox, exception, freak of nature, or however they choose to explain it away.
1616 A.D.
Professor Galileo: My observations indicate that planets, including Earth, revolve around the Sun.
Audience: Rubbish! I won’t stand for this nonsense. Out of my way, I’m out of here and heading back to selling indulgences….behind quota.
Thanks to Erik for posting the Taubes/Gardner panel video.
Finding it interesting 25 min in.
Thanks to Erik for posting the Taubes/Gardner panel video.
Finding it interesting 25 min in.
Tom’s quote:
“A co-worker with a handful of health problems told me he pitched the idea of going paleo to his wife, who is dead-set against it because her mother is a nutritionist and insists meat and fat will kill them. The mother is also obese and unhealthy, according to my co-worker.”
Ah, the power of belief! It took actually going low-carb to actually shake that long-held belief, but I’m more open-minded than most people. Ever since I started susbisting on tuna salad, I saw how much weight I lost, weight I had gained back when I was a vegan, and that was all it took to change my mind about fat and carbs.
Tom’s quote:
“A co-worker with a handful of health problems told me he pitched the idea of going paleo to his wife, who is dead-set against it because her mother is a nutritionist and insists meat and fat will kill them. The mother is also obese and unhealthy, according to my co-worker.”
Ah, the power of belief! It took actually going low-carb to actually shake that long-held belief, but I’m more open-minded than most people. Ever since I started susbisting on tuna salad, I saw how much weight I lost, weight I had gained back when I was a vegan, and that was all it took to change my mind about fat and carbs.
It is a big step for people teaching nutrition to stop towing the party line. It’s quite confronting to realize that what you were taught in your science degree, then what you go on to teach students is incorrect. While we have the critical thinking skills to delve into the research and therefore discover fact from fiction, those qualifications are a barrier from looking into it in the first place.
The difficulty of changing long-held beliefs was described perfectly in the book “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me).”
It is a big step for people teaching nutrition to stop towing the party line. It’s quite confronting to realize that what you were taught in your science degree, then what you go on to teach students is incorrect. While we have the critical thinking skills to delve into the research and therefore discover fact from fiction, those qualifications are a barrier from looking into it in the first place.
The difficulty of changing long-held beliefs was described perfectly in the book “Mistakes Were Made (but not by me).”
I don’t know if this is too off topic but I recently did a gestational diabetes test. I had a false positive my last pregnancy and another positive again last week so I have to do 3 hour fasting glucose test. Does anyone here know about the reliability of these tests? I read that %20 of these tests turn up positive but only %2 have diabetes. If this is true this test seems really unnecessary. Also isn’t drinking 100g of glucose pretty harmfull to mom and baby in itself? I asked this and the response I get from doctors is always “oh but its worse to not know if you have diabetes”. The whole thing seems like yet another establishment medicine witch doctor ritual. Does anyone here know where to get better info on this test than my doctors office will provide? So frustrating.
I’m not sure on that one.
I don’t know if this is too off topic but I recently did a gestational diabetes test. I had a false positive my last pregnancy and another positive again last week so I have to do 3 hour fasting glucose test. Does anyone here know about the reliability of these tests? I read that %20 of these tests turn up positive but only %2 have diabetes. If this is true this test seems really unnecessary. Also isn’t drinking 100g of glucose pretty harmfull to mom and baby in itself? I asked this and the response I get from doctors is always “oh but its worse to not know if you have diabetes”. The whole thing seems like yet another establishment medicine witch doctor ritual. Does anyone here know where to get better info on this test than my doctors office will provide? So frustrating.
I’m not sure on that one.
Just a point to note about the things taught in schools and the effect of teachers.
In the end, school is just a right of passage so that government and the general public can “classify” you. Being right isn’t always a good thing. Being a positive influence on the world around you is important, however you achieve it.
Getting the kids to realize that passing the test and knowing the actual correct facts are not necessarily the same thing. I mean, not so long ago you’d get an A for saying the world was flat.
Just a point to note about the things taught in schools and the effect of teachers.
In the end, school is just a right of passage so that government and the general public can “classify” you. Being right isn’t always a good thing. Being a positive influence on the world around you is important, however you achieve it.
Getting the kids to realize that passing the test and knowing the actual correct facts are not necessarily the same thing. I mean, not so long ago you’d get an A for saying the world was flat.