We're winning battles, but how long until we win the war?

(Joshua Gaines) #1

It took more than ten years for Barry Marshall and Robin Warren’s proven work that H. Pylori causes stomach ulcers to be accepted, and many alternative surgeries avoided. It took decades for the sterile procedures pioneered by each of Semmelweis and Lister to take hold irrespective of the proven life-saving benefits of each. Now we didn’t have the internet in those days, but we also didn’t have huge companies profiting from the status quo. So, what’s the best evidence that we’re winning this war?

  1. 2017 review and report by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, that the USDA Guidelines are not based on good science - and the thousands of comments about LCHF that followed to the USDA during the comment period as we come up to the 2020 Guidelines?

  2. ADA quietly added “Low Carbohydrate” under its described “mean plans” that could be followed by diabetics if recommended by doctors? (Even Weight Watchers makes the whole egg a “zero point food”)

  3. Swiss Re host/funding a great conference showing that we finally have some powerful and well-funded interests beginning to line up on our side?

  4. One of the shared conclusions of the Food for Thought (Swiss Re) conference seemed to be be that there’s no CVD risk to dietary fat?

  5. Hallberg study coming up on two years of sustained weight loss and diabetes reversal helps answer the sustainability question?

  6. Brilliant voices like Dave Feldman, Ivor Cummins, and the 2KD coming from non-medical perspectives with compelling analysis and experiences?

  7. Hundreds of thousands of people doing Low Carb on Diabetes UK? In South Africa with Tim Noakes?

What am I missing? Let’s not spike the ball just yet, but there’s been some great progress, no?

(Joy) #2

Plus the Virta Health initiative. That ought to become a model worth pointing to.


The forthcoming Food Lies film is going to help, too.

I’ve been involved with the ecological landscaping movement for many a year. It used to be illegal to grow native American plants, especially if installed in a naturalistic style. It took decades to turn around public policy. Now cities all over promote native grasses, rain gardens, etc. I see this movement through an identical lens. Science, proof of public benefit, and citizen action made change come about. Crusade on, smart peeps!

(bulkbiker) #3

GP’s in the UK are being delivered an online education pack about LCHF by Dr David Unwin who tweets as @lowcarbgp along with diabetes.co.uk who advocate a low carb treatment plan and have a program followed by I think now over 300,000 people.

(Joshua Gaines) #4

Yes! (That was my number 7 but thanks for expanding on that with the David Unwin piece). I’d also add the recent relatively small but significant change in FDA food labeling regulations. While continuing to require the amount of “Total Fat,” “Saturated Fat,” and “Trans Fat” in terms of grams on the label, which supports the correct idea that Trans Fat is harmful (but the ban on those is about to take final effect), and the wrong-headed ideas that saturated fat is worse than so-called vegetable (seed) oils AND that calories-in, calories-out is important to long-term weight/health management, the US FDA is removing the “Calories from Fat” line item from the label. This change is consistent with the fact that it really doesn’t matter how many calories you get from fat, as long as it’s the right kind of fat - and I think most of us agree with that. I guess these changes are one step up and one step back, but I like to look on the bright side! The FDA now seems to agree that avocado oil and olive oil can be consumed without limit (other than as to total calories), so that’s a start.

(bulkbiker) #5

No this is new… the Royal College of GP’s have issued an online course based on Dr Unwin’s results and with help from DCUK. I suggested they may want to make it a compulsory element of GP’s CPD.
This is as well as DCUK Low Carb Program.