Dr Tim Noakes on Trial for Giving Nutritional Advice?

This trial is perhaps evidence only of the corruption and malpractice that's become 'normal' in South Africa. Universities have been forced into the hands of commercial operators to survive. The popularity of the Banting Diet in South Africa is a strong challenge to the traditional powerhouse of nutritional knowledge Stellenbosch University, and the South African government. Hundreds of jobs, millions of dollars of current and future investment, the continued funding of university departments, the reputations of distinguished professors, are at risk if Dr Tim Noakes is found "not guilty" of professional misconduct.

Prof Tim Noakes, changed his diet four years ago after he discovered that he had type two diabetes. He took advice from professional researchers in the USA, Eric Westman, Stephen Phinney and Jeff Volek. He adopted the low-carbohydrate high-fat diet they suggested, and his diabetes symptoms vanished. Noakes was very public about this, admitting that in his previous books, he had been wrong about diet. He then helped write a best selling book called "The Real Meal Revolution" promoting the Banting Diet.

The Banting Diet, didn't please the food producers, or the medical profession, or the academics at Stellenbosch University. The Banting Diet worked and the Standard South African Diet, helped cause obesity and type 2 diabetes, and many other health problems. So in the eyes of "the establishment" Dr Noakes had to be punished, for stepping out of line. Hence this messy "trial."

I write a great deal about this in the website. It's a great opportunity for you to upgrade your nutritional knowledge, but I don't expect you to watch all 60+ videos. If you read the pages I've written you'll have the story.

The result of this trial will be announced on 21st of April, 2017. It will be in the news. I expect the adjudicator, Joan Adams to clear Tim Noakes and give the HPCSA and the DASA a strong dressing down. Cost and damages to Dr. Noakes would be appropriate.

New Zealand Moves against Sugar and Carbohydrates

There is some good news, arriving even as I write this newsletter (2nd week of April, 2017).

12 April 2017
To ensure the Ministry of Education gets the best information around exercise and healthy food, one of New Zealand's top sports and nutrition experts, Professor Grant Schofield, was today appointed to a new role as Chief Education Health and Nutrition Advisor.

Secretary for Education Iona Holsted says Professor Schofield will be working across Government agencies to help New Zealand learners achieve their full potential through the use of international and national health and nutrition research.

“The Government is committed to combating childhood obesity. The 2015 Childhood Obesity Plan developed by the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor Sir Peter Gluckman acknowledges that education settings are an important environment for influencing children's physical activity and food choices,” she says. (Does this appointment indicate that the government knows the old plan is inadequate.) School lunches without sandwiches are being discussed. That's good.

On National Radio Kim Hill hosts "The Cost of Sugar" which is available here. Dr Jim Mann is one of the experts on the panel. There is a dispute between Dr Schofield and Dr Mann (the next page is about Dr Mann), Dr Schofield recommending Banting and Dr Mann recommending a "mixed diet" low in fat.

The End of Illness

Thanks to a friend, Geoff Cardwell, I've been able to read Dr David B Agus, who wrote "The End of Illness." Dr Agus was a cancer specialist. Forty years ago he expected that his specialist field, cancer treatment, would make remarkable progress so that the medical profession would solve the problem of cancer. That's not the case. Cancers are still treated as foreign bodies that must be cut out, burnt out, or poisoned.

The death rate from cancer over 60 years has not changed. Cancers are still diagnosed by looking at the cell structure. Cancer cells look different. We classify cancer by the tissue in which cancering occurs. That makes no sense, because the cause of the cancer is not the tissue in which it occurs. Cancer is an event in your body, caused by a breakdown in the conversation between body cells, that normally keeps you healthy.

Cancer is NOT a genetic disease. Cancer is a cell, or a mass of cells that is no longer under control, in it's own environment. Cancer is caused by a breakdown of your metabolic system. The body is a complex system, with many tightly controlled sub-systems. We've discovered that you don't need to kill or remove a cancer to gain significant benefit. If you can stop it growing that's helpful. If the cancer shrinks that's a benefit.

Dr Agus argues that using doctors to diagnose problems and treat symptoms is a very poor use of a doctors knowledge and skills. But this is the major thing we ask doctors to do. Patients need to be much more active in preventing health breakdown in the first place. You need your own regular measurements (written down). You need to record how you feel, in writing at least once a week. These measurement and comments give you something strong as evidence that your health remains good. But it may also point to future problems, not yet serious.

Inflammation is a sign of general disorder in the system. Most of us suffer from low-level chronic inflammation. It's doing you damage but you don't know it. In a similar way, far too many of us are developing a fatty liver. There are no symptoms until it gets very serious, but that's perhaps 20 years after the problem began.

There were four posts to the blog in the last month. Here is a quick summary.

Update on Expertise Pages

I've added seven new "experts" to the web site. Two world class researchers into the function of ketones in the body. Dr Keiran Clarke has been supplying a patented ketone ester to Olympic rowers and cyclists in the UK, for the last year. A commercial release of her energy releasing ketone drink is planned. Dr Richard Veech, is a very strong advocate of ketones as the ultimate fuel for the brain. He's disappointed in how little uptake of this technology there has been by governments and the medical establishment. On the other hand the military have been very quick to use ketones (experimentally) in operational situations. Dr Veech believes ketone esters will become standard first process treatment for ALL traumatic brain injuries. They will also be used to treat brain cancers, and Parkinson's' disease and Alzheimer's disease. He believes these esters can be produced cheaply, at less than a dollar a dose, while the current price is over $300. Dr Veech's connections, in the USA, have also started to market a ketone ester, aiming at professional athletes.

There are three new medical doctors, all from the UK. One is a specialist in children's health, one is a type one diabetic who was getting increasingly sick, in spite of his careful use of insulin. Four years ago he discovered low-carbohydrate high-fat diets, and his health has fully recovered. The final GP, is a specialist in diabetes care, who's won awards from the NHS, for his success in treating patients and saving the NHS money. But he's helping them use a dietary a practice, that he's not permitted to tell them about according to the NICE protocol.

Dr Aseem Malhotra, is a cardiac surgeon who's become very critical of the medical establishment, and has been invited to speak at conferences all over the world. He advocates a Mediterranean Diet, and personally he consumes ten tablespoons of olive oil a day, in addition to his normal meals. That demonstrates that the calories in v calories out theory, for weight gain, is nonsense. He's consuming over 3000 calories a day, and carries no excess fat at all.

Finally there's Verner Wheelock, an agricultural scientist, who got interested in nutrition. A little bit like Hugh Butler who I've written about on this blog. Dr Wheelock, has been writing a blog for more than three years, and today he's using that data to write a book. If you use Twitter, you'll find him there, two or three times a day, usually pointing to something he previously wrote in his blog. He's looking for feedback, to help the book along.

Failure of Governance, Environmental Collapse and Vegetarian Diets

I'm very concerned about the connection between the environment and the economy, and I was pleased to be able to attend the Living Economies Expo, at Lyttelton recently. Increasingly I see that the environment is also the CAUSE of much or the poor health in our community. In particular the faulty information environment surrounding health.

The Expo looked at dysfunctional political processes, and a faulty monetary system. Look at Eastern Europe for good example of what corrupt politicians can do to cripple local economies. We see population decline in many countries. That's also happening in Greece and Spain, in parts of Africa, and in South America too.

Syria, is an example. Ecological neglect was first, then there was three years of drought. Farmers were forced off the land and they moved into the cities. In the cities they found unemployment and a lack of housing. Discontent became demonstrations in the street. Demonstrations led to government retaliation, and finally a civil war develops. Expect to see this type of thing become more common. It will happen in many countries in the next few years.

Water is a critical and fragile resource. In Canterbury fifteen years ago I was involved with a group that wanted to create an annual water festival to celebrate the quantity and quality of Canterbury water. Today, the groundwater is depleted, sometimes our rivers don't run into the ocean and most of our waterways are seriously polluted. How did that happen so quickly? The cause was political failure, and it led to the Save Our Water Campaign.

With regard to Open Future Health, what are these stories telling us about our own future? Where is the source of your own health? If the political process is broken, it's very hard to get good community cooperation and sensible decision making. We've failed with regard to water and housing, and I suspect the public health system is also failing. It's hard for any individual to be healthy, if the social, commercial, health and political systems, are giving you perverse messages. In New Zealand the information environment regarding health is toxic, or obesidemic. The official government dietary advice is wrong. The legislation for food labeling is wrong. The advertising standards for food products are ridiculous. Everything is out of alignment with the best modern science.

Many of the people at the Expo, were vegetarians, and proudly so. I do understand that stance. Carolyn and I have in the past looked to a vegetarian diet as a "gold standard" for which we aimed. For many years we seldom ate red meat, restricting ourselves to chicken and fish; each once a week. I expect many of you eat like that today. I now think that makes your personal health worse. Being vegetarian, and doing it well, is a great burden to carry. It's almost impossible to keep yourself healthy in the long run. Please follow the links to read more.

Following the Weston Price Dietary Recommendation

We are who we are. We know what we know. Our history is our history. I'm proud to be the person I have become. This is as it should be. Maori and Pacific people know about the work of Weston Price in the 1930's. He travelled the world looking for people who had a healthy diet. He found many examples, including NZ Maori and people living in the Pacific Islands.

I spoke to one articulate women who was sure she was eating the diet Weston Price said was so good. By just looking at her I could see that her knowledge was faulty. Something was seriously wrong, and it showed in her body. Here is a web site with direct connection to Weston Price's work.

“If civilized man is to survive, he must incorporate the fundamentals of primitive nutritional wisdom into his modern life-style.”
– Dr. Weston A. Price

Primitive nutritional wisdom – the traditional diets studied by Dr. Price – incorporated foods that were high in protein, vitamins, and minerals. The peoples ate foods that were nutrient-dense, including fish, butter, eggs, and organ meats all minimally processed. Primitive, traditional diets do not include high quantities of sugar, white flour, fillers, or other additives. (JSV - The Banting Diet follows that model. Eat REAL FOOD.)

Forty years before Weston Price, Ales Hrdlicka, a medical doctor trained in Europe, found that Plains Indians, who lived mostly on buffalo meat, were very healthy and much taller than American Europeans (Who in turn were taller than European Europeans.). Growing tall with strong bones and teeth, is a product of a quality diet for small children. Before the end of the 19th Century, Plains Indians may have eaten the best diet of any human societies on earth. (Their height is the evidence. Men ave. 6ft 6in. European men averaged 5ft 2in at the same time.) But this was coming to an end, the government policy of slaughtering the buffalo herds, destroyed the possibility of living in the traditional way.

Traveling to Lyttelton, I met several bus drivers who I engaged in a long discussion. All but one were considerably overweight. One told me that diabetes was common among bus drivers. Most of them expressed interest in what I was telling them, but NONE of them have taken my advice. That's a choice people make.

Fighting Inflammation in the Body

If you are like me, and perhaps like most doctors, inflammation in the body is a bit of a mystery. Until I got sick three years ago, I didn't understand inflammation at all, except in terms of a sprained ankle, or an infected wound. Symptoms of inflammation are swelling, redness, pain, perhaps the formation of pus or weeping of fluid from a wound.

Chronic low level inflammation has the same physical effects, mostly undetected and internal. Inflammation of the blood vessels isn't noticed until you have a stroke or a heart attack. Inflammation of the joints may be noticeable as pain in the joints that we call arthritis. Some people argue that asthma is a similar inflammation of the lungs.

So when I asked my doctor about it, he said maybe eating fresh berries is helpful, because of the anti-oxidants they contain. He would prescribe anti-histamines, for the same reason. "Frankly, we're not very sure how we can effectively fight inflammation."

I understand his confusion. If you search the Internet you'll find all sorts of anti-inflammatory recommendations. Some of them make sense, some are non-sense, and I'm not sure which is which. Here is a 30 minute video where Steve Phinney explains inflammation.

What I have to offer is my own experience. Make of it what you will. Signs of long term inflammation in my body have been, the rash I developed (hives), generally a tendency to have itchy skin, some arthritis pain in the finger joints, my varicose veins, dark blotches on my skin (age spots) looking a bit like a bruise. Other hidden inflammation I expect existed would be in my liver, my pancreas and my kidneys. None of them producing symptoms yet, but because I was putting on weight, they were almost certainly inflamed. (Is what I've experience "normal aging?)

Today I claim to have a very low level of inflammation. The process of reducing evidence of inflammation in the body isn't quick, the process is obvious to me now, but it's 18 months since I changed my diet. The rash went away quite quickly, but the itchy skin took several months. The improvement in the veins in my legs, is now visible and clear, but that's 18 months after I began. There is no arthritis in my hands now. I've no idea when that stopped, a long time ago. The dark blotches in my skin, are still present, but hardly visible, while they used to be very obvious.

The better I keep to the Banting Diet, the less inflammation is produced. My weaknesses. Recently I ate a whole corn cob two days in a row as part of my evening meal. I had trouble with soft feces for the next three days. I still have trouble when I eat too much fruit. I have once or twice attended a party where the only food offered is "off my menu." I've no desire at all to eat sweet foods, until I start. Once you begin to eat sweet, it's easy to keep on and on. Sweet foods encourage you to eat more and more. They don't fill you up, because they are empty calories. They make you fat and sick. I can do that too, but I've learned that it doesn't pay.

You don't need to be in ketosis to reduce weight. Just eat less than 130gm of carbohydrates a day. But if you want to reduce your inflammation being in ketosis is a big step forward. Glucose burns dirty, while ketones burn clean. Using glucose for energy produces lots of inflammation, while using ketones doesn't.