At my doctor's office yesterday

conversationstarters
#1

I had an interesting interaction with my doctor yesterday. She scheduled some future routine blood testing for me, and I told her I would be interested to see the results as I am in process of losing some weight and improving my health on a low-carb, no-processed-food diet.

She spontaneously started telling me about a client of one of her colleagues who was on “some fad diet” which involved bacon and eggs, lots of olive oil, coffee with cream instead of milk (so I immediately thought “Uh-oh, here we go…”). But then, surprisingly, there was no criticism or warning – she actually indicated she was quite impressed by the client’s results and pleased about the positive changes it was making in his health.

I realised the problem is really that many Australian doctors simply aren’t well-informed about nutrition and current dietary research and information (my doctor clearly didn’t know a lot about LCHF/keto). But at least she seems to be undogmatic and quite open-minded about clients doing their own research and self-experimentation. I hope I can impress her with my results at my next visit, and maybe lead her to investigate LCHF further, to the future benefit of others

#2

I have had a similar experience in Brissy. My quack accepts my diet and appreciates that I have lowered my risk of cardiac disease by losing weight, but may increase it slightly by eating saturated fat. We agreed to have a CTCA scan done which showed no evidence of arteriosclerosis. So I have not corrected them on the saturated fat issue, but stand as an n=1 for their records.

(LeeAnn Brooks) #3

How is a diet that’s been around since 1920’s a “fad” diet?

#4

We here in the Forums may well know that this therapeutic way of eating has been around for a long time because we’ve likely done a lot of reading and research about it ourselves, but don’t forget the general public (including medical professionals) are not so well-versed in this area. Plus I imagine that, at the time that my doctor was gaining her qualifications (in the LOW-FAT-EVERYTHING! 1980’s), LCHF was definitely out of fashion and likely not taught at all.

Even keto heroes like Tim Noakes and Peter Brukner admit they were ignorant about this WOE and initially trapped in SAD thinking, until they were led to enlightenment and did their own research into it. I imagine a frantically busy GP doesn’t have time to do a lot of general interest reading in this area - it would be good if they could!

(LeeAnn Brooks) #5

I know, but it still bugs me. Especially when I hear it’s an offshoot of Atkins.

If anything, Keto is the precursor to Atkins, not the other way around.