Review: Undoctored

      134 Comments on Review: Undoctored

Here’s the short review:

Undoctored, the terrific new book by Dr. William “Wheat Belly” Davis, covers pretty much everything I’ve been saying on this blog about how the Wisdom of Crowds is crowding out conventional (but lousy) health advice, then adds a heckuva lot of good step-by-step advice on how to monitor and improve your own health — partly by leveraging the Wisdom of Crowds.

Now for the longer review:

A couple of years ago, when I was kicking around the idea for the Fat Head Kids book and film, I drove to Wisconsin to interview Dr. Davis on camera.  We ended up conducting the interview in a downstairs reading room because the desk in his upstairs office was piled high with stacks of research.

Over dinner later, he told me the research was for a new book.  But before he described the contents of the book, he told me why he felt compelled to write it:

Dr. Davis grew up as a dirt-poor kid in New Jersey.  After rising from such humble beginnings, working his way through medical school and becoming a cardiologist with a busy practice, he felt a sense of pride in what he’d accomplished.  For most of his adult life, he enjoyed his status as doctor.

But that was then.  Nowadays, Dr. Davis views the health-care system as little more than an industry designed to shuttle people through a series of expensive drugs and procedures.  Actual health isn’t the priority.  The movers and shakers have no interest in, say, preventing or treating type II diabetes with diet, because they view diabetes as the gift that keeps on giving.  Diabetics are paying customers for life.

As a result, he explained, he hesitates to tell people who don’t already know him that he’s a doctor.  He doesn’t like being associated with the modern medical industry.

So the new book (which was untitled at the time) would include two major sections:  The first section would explain to readers why the “health-care” system is more interested in their dollars than their health.  The second section would arm readers with the knowledge and tools to monitor and improve their own health, and thus avoid ending up in the belly of the health-care beast.  With all the bad advice coming from the medical establishment, people need to do their own research and direct their own health instead of relying on doctors to do it for them.

That, of course, led to a long discussion about the Wisdom of Crowds effect.

You can gauge a doctor’s opinion of the general public by his or her attitude towards the explosion of health information available online.  In a post last December, I pointed out that Dr. David Katz – a big-time promoter of arterycloggingsaturatedfat! hysteria whose idiotic NuVal system ranks sugar-laden soy milk as far healthier option than a turkey breast – sees social media as a danger.  An essay Katz wrote for the Huffington Post basically boils down to this:  Dangit!  All those bloggers and podcasters and health discussion groups online are causing the stupid, gullible public to question true experts like me!  This is very, very bad!

Let’s just say Dr. Katz doesn’t believe in the Wisdom of Crowds effect.  He believes we should all bow before the superior expertise of The Anointed – himself included, of course.

Compare his attitude to the attitude expressed by Dr. Davis in the introduction of Undoctored:

I propose that people can manage their own health safely and responsibly and attain results superior to those achieved through conventional healthcare – not less than, not on a par with, but superior.

And later:

Self-directed health is a phenomenon that will stretch far and wide into human health.  It will encompass preventive practices, diagnostic testing, smartphone apps, and therapeutic strategies.  It puts the astounding and unexpected wisdom of crowds to work, providing you with a depth and breadth of collective information and experience that far exceeds that of any one person, no matter how much of an expert.

Just a wee bit different, eh?  Dr. Davis thinks it’s perfectly okay for you to do research online and question your doctor.  In fact, he WANTS you to do research online and question your doctor.  He says so over and over in the book.  That’s because unlike Katz, Dr. Davis believes people have brains and are capable of using them to find the advice that works and ditch the advice that doesn’t.

Undoctored offers plenty of specific advice on how to gather information about your own health and leverage the wisdom of crowds:  sites for exchanging ideas and data with other people, places you can go to order your own lab tests, sites that help you interpret the lab tests, and so on.

But that’s a bit later.  First, Dr. Davis gives the modern medical industry the blistering it deserves.  Here are some choice quotes:

There’s no ham in hamburger, Grape-Nuts don’t have grapes or nuts, and health does not come from healthcare.

There is a continual push to medicalize human life.  Shyness is now “social anxiety disorder” to justify “treatment” with antidepressant medication; binging in the middle of the night is now “sleep-related eating disorder” to justify treatment with seizure medication and antidepressants; obesity, declared a disease by the FDA, justifies insurance payments for gastric bypass and lap-band.   Don’t be surprised if sometime soon, bad dreams, between-meal hunger and excessive love of your cat are labeled diseases warranting treatment.

I was reminded of what Dr. Malcolm Kendrick wrote in Doctoring Data:  normal human conditions are now classified as diseases just in time to be diagnosed and treated with a new wonder drug.

Dr. Davis goes on to describe how Big Food and Big Pharma have corrupted the healthcare system from top to bottom, from the research, to the health advice, to the treatments when the advice doesn’t work.  Your doctor may mean well, but her (ahem) knowledge of what to diagnose and treat often comes from seminars sponsored by Big Pharma.  Prevention, of course, isn’t on the agenda.

Despite the book’s title, Dr. Davis isn’t suggesting people never visit a doctor again.  He lists a number of conditions that absolutely, positively require medical attention.  He wants doctors to treat what they treat well.

But he wants you to take control of your own health by leveraging the wisdom of crowds and the experiences of others.  If you do that, there’s a good chance you’ll become what Dr. Davis calls undoctored … meaning you only need to see a doctor for actual emergencies and perhaps a bit of monitoring, not for conditions you shouldn’t develop in the first place.

Reading that, I was reminded of when I went in recently for a dermatology checkup.  (I had a skin cancer removed from my back 15 years or so ago, so I get called in for occasional checkups.)  Part of the conversation with the nurse went something like this:

“Who’s your primary-care physician?”

“Uh … sorry, I don’t remember his name.”

“You don’t know your doctor’s name?”

“I’ve lived in Tennessee for seven years and I’ve seen the guy once.  That was because I decided to have a checkup when I turned 55.”

A big part of becoming undoctored is, of course, adopting a diet that enhances health instead of breaking it down.  You won’t be surprised that the Wheat Belly doctor prescribes a diet devoid of grains.  And sugar.  And industrial oils.  And almost all processed foods.  To make it easier to adopt the diet, the book lists several weeks’ worth of recipes.

But there’s more to it than diet alone.  Dr. Davis refers to the whole program as Wild, Naked and Unwashed.  No, that’s not the description of a fraternity party.  It’s a reference to the lifestyle of our paleo ancestors.  We don’t have to actually forgo bathing and run naked in the woods to be healthy, but we do need to recognize that our genes were coded for an environment very unlike the modern industrial world.

With that in mind, Dr. Davis spends the next few chapters describing the nutrients that civilized humans rarely ingest in sufficient quantities, including magnesium and vitamin D.  He also gives specific instructions on how to monitor blood levels of essential nutrients (vitamin D included) using direct-to-consumer tests.  He offers similar advice for checking thyroid health.

The book also includes an entire chapter on the importance of bowel flora (a subject he talked about at length when I interviewed him).  He explains how to obtain at-home test kits, and which specific supplements to take if necessary.  He also provides dozens of recipes for prebiotic shakes using ingredients such as green bananas, inulin and bits of raw potato.

I don’t find the “Appendix whatever” sections of most books particularly useful.  Undoctored is an exception.  In fact, I suspect these final pages will become dog-eared.

Appendix A lists several common ailments – from constipation to fatty liver – with a protocol for identifying and correcting the source of the problem.  Appendix B lists hidden sources of wheat and gluten.  Appendix C describes how to ferment your own vegetables.  Appendix D offers a list of sites where you can exchange ideas, do research, order at-home lab tests, etc.  It also lists the brands of supplements Dr. Davis considers high-quality.

Like I said, this is a terrific book.  With all the junk advice being handed down by doctors, government agencies, and organizations like The American Heart Association, it’s also a very necessary book.  Readers of this blog don’t need to be convinced that a huge chunk of what passes for health advice these days is garbage, but plenty of other people do.  And fairly or not, a lot of them will need to hear it from a doctor before they’ll believe it.

Dr. Davis took on the grain industry in Wheat Belly.  He takes on pretty much the entire medical establishment in Undoctored.  I’ve asked him to please stay out of dark alleys and to consider using a stunt double for public appearances.

Kidding, of course.  Well, half-kidding.  We need Dr. Davis to stick around for many more years and continue writing books like this.


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134 thoughts on “Review: Undoctored

  1. Bob Niland

    re: Could always make your own soda. Squeeze your choice of citrus fruits into some carbonated water and add 1 tsp of sugar. A little bit of sugar aint gonna hurt you…

    It’s not a little bit. There’s an astonishing amount of sugar in standard pops. Back in the 1970s, I tried to economize by making my own root beer with Hires extract. When I saw how much sugar the recipe called for, I gave up pop. Perhaps everyone needs to run that little home experiment.

    On diet pop, be aware that stevia pop (and any pop sweetened with alternative non-“artificial” sweeteners) have had only trivial market share over the last 8 years, and are generally completely ignored in studies and trials, many of which predate arguable safe non-nutritive sweeteners. The breathless headlines about diet pop may not apply to Zevia.

    What does apply is all the other concerns about what’s in canned beverages of any sort:
    http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2015/08/13/big-soda-fights-back/#comment-4178479

    Meanwhile, the calendar sez the LCC has put to sea. I’m surprised Tom has time to blog.

    1. j

      Right.. Im aware soda has a ton of sugar which is why I suggested using only 1 tsp 🙂

  2. Bob Niland

    re: Could always make your own soda. Squeeze your choice of citrus fruits into some carbonated water and add 1 tsp of sugar. A little bit of sugar aint gonna hurt you…

    It’s not a little bit. There’s an astonishing amount of sugar in standard pops. Back in the 1970s, I tried to economize by making my own root beer with Hires extract. When I saw how much sugar the recipe called for, I gave up pop. Perhaps everyone needs to run that little home experiment.

    On diet pop, be aware that stevia pop (and any pop sweetened with alternative non-“artificial” sweeteners) have had only trivial market share over the last 8 years, and are generally completely ignored in studies and trials, many of which predate arguable safe non-nutritive sweeteners. The breathless headlines about diet pop may not apply to Zevia.

    What does apply is all the other concerns about what’s in canned beverages of any sort:
    http://www.fathead-movie.com/index.php/2015/08/13/big-soda-fights-back/#comment-4178479

    Meanwhile, the calendar sez the LCC has put to sea. I’m surprised Tom has time to blog.

  3. Chanah

    Count me in as another person who has had enough of useless doctors. Interestingly, our local paper had an article several months ago about how better patient/personal relations are the wave of the future for medical professionals.
    Like the idea that health insurance or coverage plans are the solution to the health crisis, this is a case of dealing with secondary or tertiary effects. What will solve the growing health crisis is prevention, not pseudo-cures. If corn products were not subsidized, high-fructose corn syrup and cornstarch-based snacks would not be a cheap “food” source for the poor. The same goes for wheat subsidies, etc.
    Type II diabetes will sink the system regardless of how much is shoveled into insurance. I also think that if the consumer pays directly, the doctor is more likely to see him of her as a customer, instead of the insurance provider of the government. on the other side, if you pay out of pocket, you will demand better services.
    On the bright side, retractions of poor and fraudulent studies are on the increase. Hoping that it trickles through to the general public that public health prescriptions are worthless. (http://retractionwatch.com/2017/07/04/correct-values-impossible-establish-embattled-nutrition-researcher-adds-long-fix-2005-paper/#more-50794)

    1. Tom Naughton

      I agree completely. Arguing about who will pay a healthcare bill the country simply can’t afford is kind of pointless. Doesn’t matter if we try to dump that bill on insurance companies or government agencies; ultimately, the money comes from all of us, and there isn’t enough of it around to pay the bills for a nation of diabetics. We have to treat the source of the problem, not the downstream costs.

  4. Chanah

    Count me in as another person who has had enough of useless doctors. Interestingly, our local paper had an article several months ago about how better patient/personal relations are the wave of the future for medical professionals.
    Like the idea that health insurance or coverage plans are the solution to the health crisis, this is a case of dealing with secondary or tertiary effects. What will solve the growing health crisis is prevention, not pseudo-cures. If corn products were not subsidized, high-fructose corn syrup and cornstarch-based snacks would not be a cheap “food” source for the poor. The same goes for wheat subsidies, etc.
    Type II diabetes will sink the system regardless of how much is shoveled into insurance. I also think that if the consumer pays directly, the doctor is more likely to see him of her as a customer, instead of the insurance provider of the government. on the other side, if you pay out of pocket, you will demand better services.
    On the bright side, retractions of poor and fraudulent studies are on the increase. Hoping that it trickles through to the general public that public health prescriptions are worthless. (http://retractionwatch.com/2017/07/04/correct-values-impossible-establish-embattled-nutrition-researcher-adds-long-fix-2005-paper/#more-50794)

    1. Tom Naughton Post author

      I agree completely. Arguing about who will pay a healthcare bill the country simply can’t afford is kind of pointless. Doesn’t matter if we try to dump that bill on insurance companies or government agencies; ultimately, the money comes from all of us, and there isn’t enough of it around to pay the bills for a nation of diabetics. We have to treat the source of the problem, not the downstream costs.

  5. Laura (So Ca)

    I am on page 76 of “Undoctored”, and I am in awe of the information and data points in this well written and most interesting book. My husband and I really, and I emphasize really, do not like Therapeutic l Privilege (withholding information vital to a signed consent decision, in case it’s “too much” for you to process, or might “scare you”). Dr Davis is right up our alley.

    With my husband’sOphthalmology case, we have to due more due diligence then we should need to. Luckily our decision metrics have had great outcomes lately. We direct his care now. No more devices for Glaucoma, just a Trab surgery that will last 20-30 yrs with no eye drops needed. His prior device lasted 90 days, and we learned not to trust an MD, Surgeons included. The Lobbyist run deep with short term devices, even your eyeballs. Why go in OR 5-7 yrs, when old school lasted at least 20 yrs.

    His Partial Cornea Transplant technique (DMEK) was our pick as well. A quicker heal time and better visual acuity. Dr Davis would be proud of us. We came into the Surgeon we picked with a list of demands. It was his preference as well at a university system.

    Dr. Davis isn’t for the sheeples, but as a couple sick of our dysfunctional, immoral healthcare system, we applaud and respect Dr. Davis. He is a good man, and a true healer.

    A side note,. When “Wheat Belly” first came out (2011 IIRC), his advice cured my IBS. I wrote him a Thx U letter, and he was gracious enough to send me a letter back.

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