I stopped reading that when I tried a high saturated fat diet and gained a ton of weight. I think his “protons” idea (which is that saturated fat causes fat cells to be insulin resistant and thus throw up an “I’m full!” signal while PUFAs cause fat cells to be insulin sensitive, throwing up an “I’m hungry!” signal) might work at a cellular level, but does not work at a human-body level.
@Just_Juju You’ll have to listen to the podcast and see if you get the same idea. I do think there are people who are keto or carnivore who give these too much credit. Not everyone needs to be keto or carnivore.
On the other hand, plenty of evidence continues to accrue that keto (and I’m assuming carnivore) go a long way toward curing or placing into remission bipolar, anorexia, depression, etc. If I knew anyone who had any of those diseases, there is no doubt in my mind that I’d be rabidly trying to get them to try a keto diet.
I almost never watch nutrition videos so I don’t even have any idea about most of the gurus.
I do tend to like Bickman’s videos as those (at least the ones I have listened to) were fun, short and easy to understand. But I don’t listen to anyone except my own body. I am an individual so no one can have perfect advice for me. I just do whatever feels right and hedonistic enough and realistic for me. I am mostly interested about my own ideal (or close or good enough) woe, after all. I am interested in other things as well but my focus is still my own individual case.
Sometimes I listen to some “normal” carnivores who aren’t gurus, don’t sell anything and aren’t super sure that their way is the One True Way (that is clearly false), maybe I can pick up this and that but I filter it through my little knowledge and experiences and whatnot. I don’t follow anyone, really.
Well to be fair it’s the very reason so many people started hating on Dr Berg because of his conflict of interests having all his products he sells. I think it’s silly those that don’t like him just because he’s “just a chiropractor”. They have the capacity to do just as much research into healthy diets as any other doctor. He’s done his homework and understands more about diet, food, obesity and the impact on health than a standard family doctor does.
But he too has conflicts of interest with his products. But you can listen to him and learn without buying anything, same as Ekberg. I think it’s worse if all your “helpful advice” is behind a paywall.
With Berg, it goes far beyond that. Yes, just a chiropractor, but also a scammer who got in trouble in Virginia for outright quackery, and an all-around nasty guy - as testified to by his son, former patients, former employees, etc.
It’s come up before on this forum. He does no research of his own, no original anything - at the best he just copies other people’s stuff.
Quoting:
This is going to be quite critical. The more one gets to know him, to “see behind the curtain,” the less one will like him. Apologies for a long post.
IceNine:
Is this the same Dr. Berg that runs some scientology gig out of the DC area, or is that some other Dr. Berg? I thought it was the same guy, but now I’m not so sure. Like others in this thread, I have a bias against chiropractic for my own personal reasons. But I have an even stronger bias against scientologists lol
Absolutely. The Scientology “mission” had the same address for a long time. Many complaints included attempts at coercing patients into joining Scientology. There were also complaints from the staff of the “Health and Wellness Center” about improper attempts to have them promote the same agenda. A member of my family went to Berg’s “Center” and was pressured towards Scientology, as well as pressured to spend over $1000 on treatment that is simply ludicrous. More about that later.
Berg does not do peer-reviewed work, he takes other people’s stuff and spams out a lot of videos, sometimes stating falsehoods or half-truths, or severe inaccuracies. At times, he does not even pay attention to what he is saying. The “supplements” he tries to sell are a mixture of horribly over-priced substances, things of dubious value, and things of zero value.
Berg cherry-picks the case where that one man did spam a lot, trying to mess with Berg. The man was mad because a member of the man’s family had gone to Berg as a prospective patient with health issues, whereupon Berg pressured them to join Scientology, with a lot of bad consequences that ensued.
Berg’s explanation of the VA Board of Medicine reprimand and fining of Berg is mostly nonsense, a red herring. Berg mentions CRA, NAET, and ACG. Nothing about “BRT.”
“The “Body Restoration Technique,” (“BRT”), a procedure whereby vials of distilled water containing homeopathic imprints are held over certain designated organs or body parts while the practitioner applies tactile pressure by tapping or rubbing accupressure points, allegedly to assist in restoring hormone balance and to address other symptoms.”
This is total quackery, and the Board of Medicine rightly took issue with it. For a while, Berg ran the “BRT Training Center.”
Eric Berg BRT Training Center - 4613 Pinecrest Office Park Dr, Alexandria, VA 22312
Church of Scientology Mission of Alexandria - 4613 Pinecrest Office Park Dr, Alexandria, VA 22312
All of this can be validated and expanded upon. There are Better Business Bureau complaints against Berg and his clinic. There are Yelp reviews of the clinic.
http://www.doctorscorecard.com/ - this website appears to be not working now. A shame, because the patient and staff comments were invaluable.
I visited Dr. Eric Berg’s clinic after watching his tons of YouTube videos and reviews where he talks about health and nutrition. To be honest, I was intimidated by the way he presented the entire …
For the member of my family, Berg also pushed the " Scientology Purification Rundown" - another example of sheer nutty quackery.
A blog about living with multiple sclerosis and rheumatoid arthritis, written by Lisa Emrich, musician.
Numerous chiropractors are fronts for Scientology. That may sound crazy, paranoid, etc., but the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued for them violating federal law by requiring employees to attend courses that involved Scientology religious practices.
Scientology has convictions against it for fraud, conspiracy, criminal association, breaking and entering, stealing U.S. gov’t documents, espionage against the Ontario, Canada gov’t, libel, theft, interfering with witnesses, and breach of the public trust, among others.
Scientology is horrifyingly abusive to many people. It’s an amazing tale, how this insanity came to be.
About 70 years ago, at a science-fiction writer’s club, L. Ron Hubbard complained about low pay, a penny per word. Lester del Rey made a joke about “create a religion because it will be tax-free.” Other sci-fi writers joined in, laughing and adding their ideas about what the new “church” would be, and about how many people will believe even the most stupid thing.
From the discussion, Hubbard wrote a story, ‘Dianetics: A New Science of the Mind’, which was published in March, 1950, in the ‘pulp’ magazine, ‘Astounding Science Fiction’. Somehow, it caught on as an actual religion… Are people that stupid? Yes they are.
Well I don’t partake in his religion and don’t condone anyone pressuring others to learn more about a religion if they aren’t interested. So that’s sad to hear if it happened. I don’t judge people solely because of their affiliation with a particular religion. Much of your unforgivable stuff above was an appropriate judgement of a religion, Scientology, but that may or may not be him. Donating to it doesn’t necessarily mean he personally is evil.
But I never knew about his religion just from his videos alone, so he doesn’t push it there thank goodness. I read quite a few of the reviews and the stories you linked above. I have to say I’m not one to hate on someone based on what others say about them. In reading them quite a few seemed to hate him solely because they thought 20g carbs a day was pure lunacy and misleading and hurting people with such an unrealistic diet. They didn’t understand and harshly judged him for their failure to learn it better. Others had pretty shallow or uneducated reasons behind their hate too. The main long testimony posted I take issue with when she states she finally caved and paid all that money but later regretted it. I’m sorry, I don’t care if it was 3 hours long, nobody can stop me from standing up, laughing in their face, and walking out. Was it right for them to pressure her so badly to purchase things? No, if that indeed is what happened and not just “how it felt.” Again, you have to take someone’s word for it who is filled with anger and I won’t do that. (Its a good thing because I won’t do that with any of you either, LOL.) But in the end it’s her responsibility to not sign anything or pay anything. And any anger over that and trying to get a refund despite any fine print, etc. is really her fault. If it happened exactly as she says, yes I’d be angry too. But I wasn’t there.
There were just as many if not more positive reviews out there too telling the opposite story of working with him. I’ll reserve judgement because I have no first-hand experience with him beyond what his vids did for me, and I’m sick and tired of this culture we live in that assassinates character solely based on hearsay. It’s a giant gossip mill that everybody is quick to share boatloads of evidence that’s all hearsay. Some people may deserve it, but others don’t. I don’t want to be responsible for getting it wrong. (I recently had a horrible experience with a new doctor, and believe me, if I had left a review everyone would run for the hills. It would have been scathing. While my judgement is based on my first-hand experience, it’s not first-hand for anyone else and that borders on smearing and defamation of character for me. I can’t do it. Others are still seeing her and like her. We each need to find out for ourselves.)
The quackery stuff on the medical boards from 2006 or 2007 (can’t remember which year as I type this,) is reliable enough for me though and causes me to think, WTH Berg, really? LOL What a shame. But it wasn’t “evil”. It was just quackery.
I don’t think every person giving Keto diet advice has to have their own original discoveries and research. I have no problem with someone being well-read and sharing with me what they have learned. Standing on the shoulders of others isn’t that big of a deal, and many do it. Hell most professors in colleges do exactly that! That, and donating $250,000 to Scientology, or the complaints of disgruntled people don’t rise up to “unforgivable actions” for me. They certainly can be unlikeable though.
For me Berg’s videos helped me kickstart this diet in 2022, and I didn’t have to purchase anything and never felt pressured or hoodwinked. Of course once I really got going I found way better doctors to follow and haven’t followed him since my third or fourth month on the diet. But I may never have found all the great help I did if not for Berg. I was in the dark and didn’t know where to begin. Others recommended him and Fung first so I just started there. He has helped a lot of people in that way.
I do buy his electrolytes though, because he has the only one I can find that offers 1,000 mg potassium in it, and I have a significant deficiency in potassium with no other supplement that even comes close to the amount in his. (I get around 800mg per day on average from what I eat with my low carb diet.) if I could find another brand that offered 1,000 mg potassium I’d be interested but I doubt it would be any cheaper. I’m finding ALL companies selling supplements, electrolytes, MCT oil, protein powders, etc. etc. to be quite expensive no matter the company. That’s the only product I buy from Berg though.
I think Dr. Berg’s videos are good, I don’t know anything else about him. But I did sign up for his email alerts awhile back and I started getting obnoxious amounts of spam so I ended it and that’s all.
I try to target 50 g of carbs most days but I do hit 20 g sometimes and 30-35 g typically.
IMO, the reality is once someone decides to go this way there’s just a lot of stuff they can’t eat anymore.
My introduction to keto was on a weight loss support forum, a very small localised one, where someone mentioned they where sugar free and recommended a book they read. That brought me to Amazon to look for the book. Well I don’t remember the original book or author but I ended up buying Dr Jason Fungs, The Obesity Code. That book just blew my mind, it showed me how the current medical profession was totally wrong about diet, the food pyramid, treatment of diabetes. It hit hard as four of my family have T2 diabetes and I am now angry at the fact that not only are they being treated incorrectly by the medical profession but that they blindly follow. That led me to The Diet Doctors, which are good and I dip into, but is very Americanised for me and sometimes too detailed or too niched. I did use it for some recipe ideas. I went looking in a local bookshop for recipe ideas, nutritional information and keto science explained and found the perfect all in one, The Ketogenic Kitchen by Domini Kemp and Patricia Daly, a chef and nutritional therapist. More importantly to me the are Irish or living in Ireland and the book was written from a European perspective. Both came to keto when recovering from or to assist recovery from cancer. A
This book became very important to me. Since the book they have come further and Patricia is a founder of The Ketogenic Conference in Switzerland. (I think Dominic D’Agostina is part of this) Patricia set up a clinic and often provides free masterclasses online and I have attended a few. This has now become Aware Clinic with oncologist Dr Wafaa and many other consultants including cardiologist (I think I have that correct) and Domini providing recipes.
I use Instagram and listen to some podcasts, not many. Where do you all find the time? I found Jessie Inchauspe The Glucose Goddess on Instagram and bought her book, The Glucose Revolution. She has simple easy to understand science and explains glucose spikes in relation to food easily. She has some simple hacks for helping this but doesn’t go down the full road of Ketogenic, obesity or diabetes. And now she is being lambasted by others in the nutritional community for marketing her own product. I don’t really have an opinion on this one way or the other. On Instagram I read her if I want or scroll past if I don’t.
So then I went googling for Ketogenic forums and found this one, and the podcast. I’ve started listening to the podcast but possibly on on episode 4.
All other recommendations gratefully received.
Omg! I thought his presentation was awesome! Yes, he does emphasize that meds work well for a large number of people, that keto doesn’t work for everyone but then he goes into how keto can be effective, especially for those from whom meds don’t work. At the end, he even mentions that he will be involved with a big study about mental health and the ketogenic diet. (I can’t quote directly without going back through the podcast. A large portion of the study is being funded by the Baszucki Group: https://baszuckigroup.com/our-work/metabolism-mental-health/)
Thanks, Edith. That’s why I wanted someone else’s opinion, because to me he kept slamming people who were keto advocates. But I could have misinterpreted.
I believe he was slamming the keto advocates that were saying keto is ALL you need to cure mental health. He said that it is more complicated than just “keto heals all things.”
Yes. IMHO keto should be everyone’s step one: let your body first heal wherever it can from healing your insulin and metabolism. Then … see where you are at and anything left is what really needs extra care from other strategies. But I think it’s harder if we try to focus on everything before getting our bodies to a stable place first, free of sugars and seed oils and terrible chemicals. It clouds the landscape and you could end up treating things you didn’t need to because diet change would have done it.
Not sure I articulated that well. I hope you get what I’m saying. Heal what you can with diet and lifestyle changes first, then it’s easier to see what you really need to focus on.
I didn’t. I’ve heard him on multiple podcasts, of which this was only one of them. In others, he’s said stuff that I thought was wrong. And every time, he seems anti-keto advocates.
Could he have said something like, “I know there are keto advocates who believe that keto is a cure all. While I believe keto can have tremendous benefits, and in fact has had such benefits for my patients, one has to be cautious with respect to treating these diseases with keto. It is not a straightforward, simple application of keto to mentally ill folks.”
He could have. But he doesn’t say that. Can someone point to a transcription of this, so we can see what he says?
Note: I listened to this in the car and did not view it. So maybe there’s something I’m missing?
Don’t get me wrong, I have his book. I think he’s trying to add diet as a part of a protocol to help the mentally ill. But I think he can tone down his rhetoric.
Great question. In today’s world, anybody can publish a book and become an expert in anything. When it comes to health and nutrition, I primarily rely on those with a medical doctor’s degree in the field that they are commenting on and have produced scientific studies that have been cited by others. This bar can, but not always, be rather high. I am not taking heart advice from a chiropractor. Confirmation bias is everywhere. The phase “Show me the science” should read “Show me only the science that confirms my opinions, beliefs, and choices.” Most people are not capable of being objective when it comes to researching diets that they have invested a lot of time and effort in doing or promoting.
I have personally met some of the people mentioned here and have had conversations with them. You would be surprised at how pragmatic and approachable they are. Dr. Fung told me that the scientific research directly related to fasting in humans was almost nonexistent. He believes that it is no big deal and very low risk if someone does not eat for a day or two per week, depending on the severity of the dysfunction. He also recommends the keto protocol. In both cases, depending on his matrix, i.e., blood sugar and/or the amount of weight to be lost, will determine the length of time on these protocols. (6-12 months) Fung does no fast on purpose himself, as he is metobolically healthy, but sometimes he forgets to eat. His worst patients will do extended day fasting and it is more important for them to lose weight then to worry about muscle mass.
When I listen to a podcast, I want to make sure the host and guest are not doctors who have been kicked out of 3 states for doing x, y, or z. Dr. Attia is quite good, as his experts are generally the world’s leaders in their respective fields. This for me brings a lot of credibility to the discussion. I read the book The Salt Fix. 2x. The second time I found many errors and contradictions in most of his research. Ist time I though it was excellent.
On the one hand, we have experts claiming epidemiological “studies” that make absurd claims that eating x will reduce cancer by 20%, for example. They have so-called clinical trials that tend almost without exception to be flawed. Thanks to the poor quality of the science, we actually don’t know that much about how what we eat affects our health. Correlation is not causation. This creates a tremendous opportunity for a multitude of would-be nutrition gurus and self-proclaimed experts to insist loudly that only they know the true and righteous diet. Amazon has over 40,000 diet books; they all cannot be right.
We also have the extreme tribalism that seems to prevail everywhere in the nutritional and related fields.
My advise is that next time you watch, read or listen to a so-called expert take off the rose coloured glasses and try to be objective in the presented information.
PaulL
(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?)
#38
One of his big concerns is patients who think that, just because they are on a ketogenic diet, they can stop all their medications. He’s lost some patients who suddenly stopped their medications and had bad effects, leading to suicide. That may be why people think he’s anti-keto.
I’ll watch this video when I’ve time, but all of the lectures and interviews of his I’ve seen are very big on the idea that the standard Western diet is very damaging, metabolically speaking, and that a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet can be highly beneficial. But a lot of the drugs used to treat mental illness must be withdrawn in a safe manner; they cannot be suddenly stopped, or the effects can be dire.
A ketogenic diet itself is a standard treatment for refractory epileptic seizures, and a lot of epilepsy drugs are used on mental patients, as well, so there is no reason to reject keto as a treatment for mental illness. Some mental patients on a ketogenic diet are able to (eventually) dispense with their medications completely, whereas others must continue with medications on keto, albeit frequently on lower doses of the meds.
This is my fear. I try to listen to other people who I disagree with but then I get annoyed. The Longevity Podcast has people such as Lustig on but then it has other people on who believe in calorie restriction. I listened to one person who said that IF works as well as calorie restriction and the reason it works is because it operates as a calories restriction. Then later in the same podcast she mentions that if you can, eat earlier in the day because you are much more insulin sensitive earlier in the day! I think they are selling their monitoring so I would imagine would want Vegans and Carnivores to sign up and not do anything to antagonize either group unless the science was absolute as to which is better
How did you accomplish that?
Exactly the reason I asked the question. A friend and I were debating a well known author and podcaster and I thought he was a huckster
IceNine:
mtncntrykid:
They didn’t understand and harshly judged him for their failure to learn it better. Others had pretty shallow or uneducated reasons behind their hate too. The main long testimony posted I take issue with when she states she finally caved and paid all that money but later regretted it. I’m sorry, I don’t care if it was 3 hours long, nobody can stop me from standing up, laughing in their face, and walking out. Was it right for them to pressure her so badly to purchase things? No, if that indeed is what happened and not just “how it felt.” Again, you have to take someone’s word for it who is filled with anger and I won’t do that. (Its a good thing because I won’t do that with any of you either, LOL.) But in the end it’s her responsibility to not sign anything or pay anything. And any anger over that and trying to get a refund despite any fine print, etc. is really her fault. If it happened exactly as she says, yes I’d be angry too. But I wasn’t there.