Sawbones Podcast: Has anybody heard the Ketogenic Diet Episode?

science
(CJ Young) #1

I listen to a lot of podcasts including many from the McElroy Brothers including the podcast “Sawbones” which if you’re not familiar with it is about deep diving into medical history. It’s pretty fun and mostly they look at some of the wacky things the Greeks and Victorian’s got up to in the past when treating all sorts of things they didn’t fully understand.

This week’s episode was about Keto and I want to write them a letter as a rebuttal/nicely question a few things. I actually really respect Dr. Sydney McElroy and the work she puts into researching and looking into all of the things she does but I think maybe she didn’t give Keto a fair shake and I competently respect why. When she introduces it she makes it clear that she feels it’s a fad diet like so many before it. I assume this was her initial introduction point to it’s current popularity but I suspect this ultimately colored her perception of it.

She does talk about Keto as historically a treatment for epilepsy but she sort of says that Keto is a medical treatment that does work for this one thing but shouldn’t be applied across the board for things that aren’t proven. My issue here is that obviously there are ways that is has been shown to be effective. She mentions type II diabetics in passing and never mentions Type 1. Heart disease is unmentioned as well.

Also, as a podcast that deep dives into history there is no mention of the historic human diet. This is somewhat troubling because that is part of what Keto is about, eating a more natural human diet. Maybe she takes umbrage with that concept but it’s never addressed.

The greatest and most damning offense of all though is what she insists several times throughout: That Keto is simply too hard of a diet to stay on. As we all know, this is false. (I listened to the 2 Keto Dudes podcast from this week right after and before they get to…MAIL some Keto compliance science is dropped proving that it’s not hard to follow.)

Because this is to me the greatest disservice she does in her entire episode I was considering sending her the new book from Cummins and Gerber: Eat Rich, Live Long. I haven’t read it yet (so I would order 2 copies naturally) but based on what I’ve heard Ivor Cummins say about it, I think it would at least show some science about keto and show that it’s not hard to follow at all.

I want to send this book in a way that she might actually read it though. Any thoughts about that or is that absolutely impossible. Note: Dr. Sydney McElroy is a real doctor and does verbally roll her eyes at all of the Keto books that are coming out constantly.

Here’s the thing: this person has a huge platform and she reaches a lot of people. I’m really not trying to convert her I just want to present a few things to her in a way that might slightly change the angle at which she sees Keto. Do I have a flying hope in hell at getting her to even glance at this book? Am I wasting my time?

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #2

Dunno. Where does she get her financial support from?

You can lead a researcher to data, but you can’t make her think. . . .

(CJ Young) #3

This is a podcast that’s a spin-off from My Brother, My Brother, And Me which is a comedy podcast hosted by her husband and his two brothers. Sydney uses her medical degree as a Primary Care physician and refers to herself as a family doctor. When I say I respect her ability to do research above I mean that she reads up on each topic they choose and typically seems to do a pretty good job. The podcast is funded by the McElroy comedy podcasts and the Maximum Fun podcast network. I don’t think she’s really being paid to have a specific opinion on this or at least I don’t see where that would be coming from.

It’s extra weird because her husband, and co-host of the podcast, is doing the slow-carb diet which sounds a bit weird to me. It involves eating a lot of beans for six days a week and then eating whatever you want on the seventh. But he’s lost weight with it and he’s also been on the Atkins diet before. I know doctors don’t get a lot of coverage on diet in school but if she’s engaging with this at home it just seems weird for her to doubt the efficacy of low-carb diets or more specifically, the ability of folks to stay on them for long periods of time.

(Lane) #4

I listened to it today and I was disappointed in it.

She clearly hadn’t done her research at all, at one point asked if dairy was allowed. She said “Carbs are good” as in tasty and therefore we should not deny them if we want them. They both made it sound like it was incredibly hard to maintain and said that you had to eat tons and tons of fat (I am not eating tons of fat) She kept stipulating that this was a therapeutic diet to be used for specific conditions and not really the rest of us. And then she went on a whole rant about Keto shakes or smoothies that brides would use to fit into their dresses and she described how they would make it and consume it. I have not seen or heard of one person doing anything like that. So I was not surprised that the friend who shared the podcast with me after he read that I started keto said he was unwilling to try it because it sounded “really hard to do.” The hosts made it sound like it would be impossible for a person to survive on it. I’ve been on it two months and I am having less cravings and random hunger and feel in many ways that it’s much more sustainable than how I was eating prior.

(CJ Young) #5

Yeah, I was kind of giving her the benefit of the doubt a bit because I was so surprised at how it seemed like maybe she didn’t really research into it at all? So, I listened to the next episode which is on Antimony (an element) and right at the top of the episode they talk about all the feed back they got about the episode.

Essentially Justin said he felt that so many people got upset because he and Sydney were challenging deeply held beliefs about how to eat. The thing that made me upset is that they didn’t actually hit on any of the science or try to refute any of it. They generalized and parroted the same things people always say about it. I didn’t feel “challenged” as much as I did misrepresented. They missed a lot of points about the history of Keto/low carb and glazed over it’s current relevance. It was just so clear that no real open-minded research was done.

I know it’s technically a comedy podcast and all that but after listening to the Antimony episode I un-subbed. I happen to know quite a bit about the history of alchemy which is where Antimony flourished as a “medicinal” substance. She barely talks about it’s history in Alchemy which is weird because it’s pretty funny at times and way weirder then anything she actually talked about. Maybe she was overwhelmed by the Ketogeneic Diet episode reaction and had a busy week. Maybe she just didn’t give a shit about Antimony. I dunno but I can’t have fun listening if the narrator is this unreliable. I’m just too suspect of how she looks into things now. It seems like a perfunctory google is the tall and short of it and that kind of sucks.

(Lane) #6

Justin felt that he and Sydney were challenging “deeply held beliefs on how to eat”?

Keto is kind of the opposite of that. If they want to challenge those with deeply self beliefs on how to eat, talk to any average person who eats the standard American diet.

I wrote the above before I had a chance to listen to their response. I’m unimpressed and will unsubscribe as well. They missed the whole point. She said basically, if you’re losing weight on Keto, and happy with it, then good for you, but there are more ways to lose weight. I don’t think I’ve ever heard a person say Keto is the only way. My issue with the podcast is that they didn’t do their research about it before talking about it to an audience. He kept saying how difficult it was to do, yeah I guess, if you’re unwilling to make changes and eat real food. I get that carbs are yummy. But I also get that I have health issues that I need to make changes for and the carbs are yummy or it’s too hard arguments don’t deter some of us. You know what’s hard? Getting a liver transplant if I fail to turn around my fatty liver disease and my scarring gets worse. They just missed the whole point and were whiny about how the community criticized them. Maybe don’t broadcast things you know nothing about?