SBS Australia runs an infomercial for the medical/pharmaceutical industry on how to "Cure" obesity via a lifetime of dependence on drugs: A reply to "The Obesity Myth" & the propaganda.

Click on the screen grab (left), to enlarge and read a scathing reply to SBS's spin, left in this FB thread. According to the central proponent of their new documentary (Joseph Proietto MBBS, PhD, FRACP), the way to lose weight is to starve patients with food replacement drinks and one carbohydrate-free meals in the evening, to induce ketosis. This ketotic state makes the patient feel so nauseated/sick they lose their appetite and forget they're starving. After this (or even during if the ketosis isn't bad enough to strip them of their desire for food), they're supposed to go on a lifetime of appetite suppressing drugs, followed by bariatric surgery if their bodies are still stubbornly resisting the punishment.

Proietto then goes on to lament at one point how Australia's public health system is failing to subsidise his treatment regime/drug therapy by not making the pharmaceuticals he uses available on the PBS scheme. Yep, I bet he's extremely sorry about that, considering 70% of Australia's population is either overweight or obese. Corporate profits would go through the roof if that particular Pandora's box was opened. There's an awful lot of cash riding on that agenda.

Makes we wonder if there's a pattern emerging here with our public broadcasters, a pattern which promotes a very big business (which would like to grow even bigger). The BBC deliberately attacked and distorted the work of a highly respected (and very popular), nutrition scientist whose work strongly promotes a more natural approach - and now SBS Australia is spruiking a punishing regime which requires a lifetime of medication (preferably funded by the public purse if the drug companies get their way).    

BBC Horizon spruiks the pharmaceutical industry's corporate agenda? Aunty ignores science and enters the twilight zone . . .

Who would you rather trust for health advice, the BBC's chubby faced front man,

a non-medical doctor of just over 20 years experience who evangelises for drug treatment of obesity, approvingly tweets pictures of butter-filled junk food and is a self-proclaimed unchangeable carnivore geneticist - or the much senior and healthier-looking Dr. Kim Williams (2015 President of the American College of Cardiology) with an impressive cv spanning nearly four decades?  The choice is a no-brainer, but the BBC (quite bizarrely), headlined the former while ignoring the latter in attempt to portray avoiding animal products and highly processed foods (in favour of wholegrains, legumes, vegetables and fruit), as extreme an unhealthy.

But it gets even more surreal, they also censored the distinguished Dr. Esselstyn who sits on the nutrition committee of the American College of Cardiology, runs a successful and respected hospital-based programme treating cardio-vascular patients primarily with nutrition, has published his impressive research results in respected medical journals, presents officially accredited continuing education for doctors, dieticians and nurses and who's book (and approach), is openly endorsed by Kaiser Permanente, the USA's largest health insurer. 

Then if you think it couldn't get any wackier, it does. Scientifically speaking, Giles Yeo is barely out of nappies compared to his elder, Prof. T. Colin Campbell. Yeo wasn't even born when Campbell began his career and Campbell's vast body of research remains unchallenged (via peer review), in the scientific press. However, they're clearly drinking a potent brand of Koolaid at the BBC now, as these salient facts were simply ignored in favour of an unscientific smear campaign against the good Professor.

So what "Harmless" treatments is Giles Yeo spruiking? Well Oxyntomodulin (via daily injection) appears to be on the list at Imperial College London, that's the venerable institute Yeo directly advertises in this Daily Mail article.  It's adverse effects may include: Nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, pancreatitis (including fatal and non-fatal hemorrhagic or necrotising pancreatitis), increased incidence of C-cell hyperplasia and medullary thyroid cancer, excessive loss of skeletal muscle mass, increases in heart rate and mean arterial pressure and a trend towards blood pressure increase. Perhaps BBC Horizon should expose some of the projects Giles Yeo is pushing, rather than attempting to discredit the simple of approach of just eating ad libitum amounts of whole plant foods? Call me old fashioned, but I'd prefer a of plate brown rice and veggies to a dose of  "Necrotising pancreatitis." 

So why this high profile attack on whole-food, plant-based eating? I'm reminded of this quote . . .

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win"  Mahatma Gandhi 

Quite simply, since the official medicalisation of obesity this newly labelled "Disease" is (potentially), a corpulent cash cow (not to mention a massive money spinner), for the pharmaceutical industry. However, increasing formal recognition of whole-food, plant-based eating as a viable treatment option (see my comments re this in the first few paragraphs above), is a significant rival to these monied interests. In other words, plant-based advocates should rejoice, we're now a worthwhile (and quite worrying), adversary.

Further, this isn't the first time the BBC has been accused of pushing the corporate wheelbarrow at the expense of science and objectivity. George Monbiot at The Guardian had a few choice (and scathing), words for them too, here and here.

Quite honesty Aunty, your reputation's going down the drain fast as the social media (and high profile commentators like Monbiot), expose your business driven agenda. I guess money speaks with a very loud voice at the BBC now?

A letter to the Cardiac Society of Australia & New Zealand about including highly effective plant-based treatment options for cardio-vascular patients

Dear Andrew and Mark (with a cc list as indicated below),


I'm writing to you as a wife of an Australian cardiac patient because I strongly feel he was short-changed by his specialist treatment in this country, as are many others. I guess that's quite a forceful statement to make, though my intention isn't to combat, it's to make change. So first, our personal story, then a look at the crucial science that's "Missing in action" (so to speak), when it comes to cardiac care in this country and lastly, suggestions for a way forward.

Informed consent is a pivotal part of any medical practise and cardiac patients are routinely not given the full facts. This could lead to legal ramifications in the future (from an unhappy public), if not taken seriously. I would very much appreciate a reply which you will allow me to publish (as this subject is pertinent to so many people).

Almost two and a half years ago, at 57, my husband of 38 years started to get chest pain on walking uphill, which stopped when he rested. He was symptom free when it came to his less strenuous (and normal), daily activities. Neither of us have ever smoked. As his apparently healthy Dad died of his first heart attack at 42 (and mine died in exactly the same circumstances at 62), I was frantic with worry.  His GP referred him for a cardiac stress test as quickly as possible and I went with him.  He was grey when he came out of the examination room, he'd failed miserably, almost fainted. I was beside myself at the result, in fact I was more anxious than him, he was quite calm in comparison.

I arranged another meeting with our doctor the next day, to get a referral for an angiogram.  As soon as I had that to hand, I rang every X-ray clinic within travelling distance for the quickest appointment, finally scoring one within 48 hours.  Once that was completed, I pushed the pathologist to give us the results within 24 hours and they did, faxing the outcome to our doctor in the late afternoon. My husband was at work, so I called, telling him to leave and get to our GP as soon as he could, before her surgery closed.  She squeezed us in and we both sat there for the verdict. It was bad, very bad.  He had some major cardiac blockages, including a 90% closure of a main artery.  Strangely, he took it a lot better than I did.  I just wanted to get him to hospital as soon as possible, so our doctor gave us the test results and wrote a referral letter. Clutching those critical pieces of paper, I got him into my car and fled to the nearest centre of excellence, a large teaching hospital renowned for cardio-thoracic surgery, about an hour's drive away. At that time, I didn't know that large, chronic blockages aren't the cause of most sudden heart attacks, though I do now.

When we got to the hospital, the care was excellent.  After handing the paperwork to the triage clerk in the ED, we were whizzed through at top speed and the doctors and nurses couldn't have been more professional or caring.  I stayed by my husband's side the whole time. We were offered immediate admission, either in the public system or utilising our health insurance, through the private one. We chose the latter because we were told treatment through the public system could be delayed if any serious emergencies were admitted, as (understandably), they'd have to take priority.

This all happened late on a Friday evening, so by the time we arrived on the cardiac care ward the evening meal had been and gone. They offered my husband a cheese and ham sandwich from the fridge. Even at that early stage, my mind was swirling with the changes I was determined to make. I knew this disease hadn't appeared out of thin air, there were reasons and they were strongly related to what we were putting in our mouths. This was our wake up call and I couldn't ignore it, hubby was (and is), the love of my life.  I said he couldn't eat it and he was OK with that, saying he wasn't hungry anyway.

We saw the consultant cardiologist the next morning.  He explained that around half of all people who have heart attacks die from their first event, so I was grateful my other half never actually had one. But he didn't explain large, stable blockages don't cause most of them - and that surgical intervention doesn't lower risk (unless it's the result of an acute emergency, which is a whole other scenario). Neither did he mention or support the incredible published results from trials of low-fat, plant-based diets (I only discovered them much later) - though he did say my husband might not be suitable for stents and could need by-pass surgery.  Perhaps my appalled expression gave him second thoughts, as he finished up by scheduling my husband for the lesser intervention the following Monday morning. Here's a key, relevant quote on our experience from Dr. Esselstyn:

The present strategy focuses on interventional procedures and risk-factor modification. This approach is strictly a defensive strategy. It is pressing the limit of what society can afford. Our present cardiology budget exceeds one-quarter of a trillion dollars per year.1 Millions of symptomatic patients - generally those with arterial stenosis of more than 70% - have had interventions such as bypass, angioplasty, stenting, or atherectomy.13 Unfortunately, these interventions are accompanied by significant morbidity, mortality, and expense, provide only temporary benefit, and do nothing for patients at greatest risk for myocardial infarction, those with juvenile plaques of 30% to 50% stenosis, which are the ones most prone to rupture.14 As Forrester states, "angiography does not identify and interventional strategies don't treat those lesions most likely to cause a heart attack." From this essay

I hardly left the hospital that weekend and spent my time policing my hubby's diet and/or researching information on the net.  I remembered some old Pritikin books gathering dust on my shelves at home, so I checked out their site.  This made me particularly unhappy with the hospital's "Lipid lowering" menu which we ordered. I threw out the pats of margarine which arrived on his tray and frowned on the constant meat-centered dishes. Then when I tried to get low-fat, meat, egg and dairy free items from the hospital's cafeteria, I was confronted with a large array of rich foods full of those ingredients.  There was almost nothing else to choose from, except for a very tired looking fruit salad.  This hospital, a renowned "Centre of excellence" for cardiac care was serving up the same foods that had caused our problems in the first place. It was crazy, but at least we were only there for a few days.

The short periods of time I spent at home while my husband was in hospital were used clearing out our pantry, fridge and freezer.  All our animal-based foods, oils, fatty spreads and other high fat/refined sugar junk went into black plastic sacks and was never seen again.  I was literally turning on a sixpence, the shock was so great. When the nurse handed me the dietary guidelines from the Australian Heart Foundation, saying my husband could still eat the foods I'd just spent the weekend throwing away, I tossed the information in the bin. Luckily, he was out of the hospital room at the time and never got to see it.  I knew my job would be hard enough, without him telling me it was still OK to eat steak and eggs because the Heart Foundation endorsed it.

My husband received four stents and the surgery went well. They also told us he had good cardiac function, with no muscle damage and an ejection fraction well within normal range. He was discharged on anti-coagulants and lipid-lowering medications. We received no dietary advice, except for the information from the Australian Heart Foundation (which I'd already thrown away as inadequate).  Thus my journey to get my husband back on the path to good health and avoid future problems was made a thousand times harder, because it was entirely unsupported by any of the professionals involved in his care. So in the mind of of our relatives and friends, I became the "Crazy lady" and ""Diet nazi." It's a lonely road and our success is due to the lucky fact my husband hates to cook (he never has), and takes the path of least resistance. This means he's happy to eat what's put in front of him, as long as he hasn't had to go to the bother of preparing it.

I soon came across Forks Over Knives, Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, The China Study, Professor T. Colin Campbell, Dean Ornish MD and John McDougall MD, devouring every piece of information I could get my hands on. Following this advice (and with no portion control or measuring), my husband lost 16 kilos, dropped 3 waist sizes and his overall cholesterol plunged below 3mmol/L (while cutting his statin dose by 75%, he doesn't take any now and he also came off the anti-coagulants after 12 months).  He's remained active and symptom free. I was grateful the surgery got rid of his angina straight away, but I strongly feel his continuing success is related to my treatment regime.

We stopped seeing his cardiologist after a year too, when he told my husband low-fat diets could "Cause cancer." I had enough to cope with (handicapped by zero support from the professional fraternity), without active sabotage. Fortunately, my husband didn't take this opinion on-board (though it could have led to disastrous changes in his behaviour), as he has to live with me, not his doctor. Baffled, I can only assume the specialist was referring this research, which only shows cancer causes lower lipid levels (as any wasting disease will do). In other words, lower lipid levels don't cause cancer, it's quite the reverse.

The consultant was also shocked and surprised at my husband's excellent blood results, saying he must have responded "Extremely well" to the statins.  My brief interjection about our dietary approach didn't seem to register. This tells a story in itself. This doctor must see thousands of cardiac patients each year and (I assume), most of them would get the same high dose of statins prescribed for my husband.  If his results were an unusual anomaly in the doctor's eyes, then clearly something else was at work, something his other patients weren't getting.

So I strongly suggest you look at the published research of Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn seen here, Dr. Dean Ornish seen here, Dr. John McDougall seen here, Dr. Neal Barnard seen here and Prof. T. Colin Campbell seen here - as well as this key note presentation on the central relevance of plant-based nutrition by Dr. Kim Williams (recent President of the American College of Cardiology), in 2016.   Dr. Williams also gives a brief  interview here. You should also note that Kaiser Permanente (the USA's largest health insurer), also recommends a purely plant-based diet for cardio vascular disease - and Dean Ornish's plant-based lifestyle programme is formally re-imbursed by Medicare in the USA, as well as several commercial providers of health insurance.  Lastly, a plant-based cardiac wellness programme is offered at the highly regarded Montefiore Einstein Centre for Heart and Vascular Care.

Patients have the right to informed consent before cardiac surgery, as discussed by Dr. Michael Greger here and this is what he says "When doctors withhold dietary treatment options from cardiac patients, they are violating the cornerstone of medical ethics, informed consent." In other words, it's beyond question that intensive lifestyle interventions have been shown to reverse/alleviate serious cardio-vascular disease, which would otherwise be subject to hazardous surgical intervention. Patients have a right to be told about this by professionals who are fully au fait and up to date with the material.  No-one should be forced to forge their own path against the odds, as I did in regard to my husband's health. That's completely unacceptable in this day and age - and the legal risks to institutions and clinicians who continue along this path will only rise as the public becomes more aware.  It's very possible that sometime in the near future, someone who (perhaps), suffers severe adverse outcomes from elective cardiac surgery might decide to sue, because they weren't told about the highly favourable outcomes from much safer, intensive lifestyle modification.

Can I suggest that you contact Dr. Kim Williams (as well as the other well recognised clinicians I've linked to in this letter), to discuss the integration of this key material into Australian medical training and cardiac care as quickly as possible - and this letter also serves the public record. You're now informed.

I know you're both very busy men, but I look forward to your reply on this important matter in due course. I also appreciate your time in reading this missive. If I haven't heard anything a month from now, I'll send a friendly reminder.

Best wishes, Kim

CC Dr. Kim Williams
CC Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn
CC Dr. John McDougall
CC Dr. Dean Ornish
CC Dr. Neal Barnard
CC Dr. Michael Greger
CC Prof T. Colin Campbell