By Marika Sboros
Something is rotten in the state of nutrition science. In parts, it’s terminally ill. One symptom is cyber bullying. It’s a virus that is infecting doctors and dietitians on an unprecedented scale. These health professionals are also using their associations to spread the virus further and target nutrition experts who challenge conventional nutrition “wisdom”.
They are active on Twitter and Facebook hate pages. Those are toxic and unprofessional environments for doctors and dietitians to inhabit.
Two bloggers have started a series aimed at naming and shaming cyber bullies. It’s rough stuff but could help to stop infection rates. Cyber bullying creates significant collateral damage. It causes depression, even among doctors. It leads victims to kill themselves. Here’s the first in the series.
Before then, some background. One Facebook hate page that doctors and dietitians regularly use for severe bouts of cyber bullying is Blocked by Pete Evans (BBPE). It featured in a recent Australian Senate Inquiry into the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) medical complaint process.
BBPE appears to have the blessing of Dietitians Association of Australia (DAA). A DAA spokesperson regularly comments on the hate page attacking doctors as do other doctors and dietitians.
But it’s the doctors that really surprise me on BBPE. One GP even told prominent Australian nutrition therapist Christine Cronau to “f… off” on the page. You’d think the AHPRA wouldn’t look kindly on that kind of unethical behaviour.
Another prominent BBPE victim is top Australian orthopaedic surgeon Dr Gary Fettke, as the Senate Inquiry heard. AHPRA has banned Fettke from talking to diabetic and overweight patients about nutrition in general and sugar in particular. BBPE cyber bullies are having a feeding frenzy on that.
Fettke is rightly devastated because he sees the ravages of obesity and diabetes on his patients daily. Thus, he will just have to find other ways to help his diabetic patients avoid losing limbs.
AHPRA is trying hard – and failing miserably – to suggest it isn’t going after Fettke for his advocacy of low-carb, healthy-fat (LCHF) for diabetics. They say he is acting “beyond his scope of practice” or some such nonsense.
The action against Fettke has not surprisingly elicited a deluge of protests from doctors in Australia and globally. They say AHPRA is making Australia the laughing stock of the medical world. I’d say that’s spot on, and the diagnosis is pandering to vested interests.
BBPE, on the other hand, is enthusiastically supporting AHPRA, probably because most of those who comment on it are embedded in those vested interests. It is also hinting – or saying outright, that there’s more to its case against Fettke than meets the eye. In other words, BBPE is doing what they do best: cyber bullying and trolling Fettke by suggesting that he’s at fault and hiding something. All without a smidgeon of proof, of course, but cyber bullies don’t concern themselves with niceties such as proof and fairness.
The bloggers who want to do something about cyber bullying are the KetoDudes: Carl Franklin in the US and Richard Morris in Australia, both software developers in their 40s.
Click here to read: WHY CAN’T DR FETTKE TALK TO PATIENTS ABOUT SUGAR?
Both are recovering type 2 diabetics. Both have challenged nutrition dogma that their doctors and dietitians have dished out. They say that the dogma left them fat and sick. Consequently, Franklin and Morris did their own research and put themselves on ketogenic diets. They both lost large amounts of weight quickly and safely and are now off all diabetic medication.
Click here to read the delightful KetoDudes’ amazing, ongoing health transformations.
In the first of the series on cyber bullying, Franklin and Morris focus on the experience of Canadian nephrologist Dr Jason Fung. Fung made a comment on Twitter last month about obesity experts at a conference that some people immediately interpreted as fat-shaming. You would have thought he had posted nude pictures of them in compromising positions, so vicious was the Twitter response.
Yet Fung didn’t actually fat-shame. He didn’t mention the experts’ weight. The photograph he used was from the conference brochure. Quite frankly, I didn’t see Fung’s comment as fat-shaming. Open to misinterpretation? Yes. Sarcastic? Sure. But then, Oscar Wilde once called sarcasm the “lowest form of wit”. Wilde also called it the “highest form of intelligence”.
Fung’s tweet was a minor lapse of judgment but who among us hasn’t had one of those. I’ve commented in the past that I wouldn’t trust fat dietitians or doctors to give advice on weight loss. That didn’t go down well so now I keep that opinion to myself – unless provoked.
I still have trouble trusting overweight doctors or dietitians on diet, with some exceptions: those who are genuinely struggling with their weight despite doing all the “right things”. They are open about their battles and they dish out evidence-based advice to patients, not dogma. And the definitely don’t sugar-coat the dangers of carbs.
Here’s a shortened version of Franklin and Morris’s first blog (with a link to the full version at the end). They hone in on the Canadian physician who goes on occasional unedifying Twitter tirades aimed not just at Fung but other doctors too. The physician doesn’t agree that he does any cyber bullying. His response is also at the end.
By Carl Franklin and Richard Morris
Maybe you’ve tried a low-carb, ketogenic diet and like us you have reversed your own type 2 diabetes. You might be wondering why everyone isn’t talking about this.
You might be wondering why, in 2016, experts are still recommending that people with diabetes eat a high-carb, low-fat diet. They also recommend simply restricting calories and increasing exercise when that advice only ever leads to diabetes progressing and worsening.
The reality is that when medical professionals do speak out in support of a hormonal solution to diabetes that is working, others bully them into shutting up. We’re doing a series of posts about cyber bullying and how the people who do stand up, get bullied. It begins with (Canadian nephrologist) Dr Jason Fung.
Click here to read: DIABETES CAN BE CURED! A DOCTOR’S JOURNEY
Carl and I interviewed Fung on Episode 26 – The Obesity Code with Dr. Jason Fung. It’s still the most popular podcast we have ever done. If you listened to the podcast or have ever heard Fung’s many YouTube recordings you know his premises:
- It’s not your fault you are fat; your hormones are driving this, not your choices;
- Medical science has lied to you by telling you that it’s your fault you eat too much and exercise too little;
- The two-compartment model explains how you became diabetic, and how you can reverse your diabetes.
Fung has put all his content free online on YouTube for years. Millions of views later, Carl and I hear every day from people who have watched his videos and say Fung has changed their lives. He also has a clinical practice in Toronto that has successfully treated over a thousand patients He has written two books: The Obesity Code and Intermittent Fasting, co-authored by Jimmy Moore.
(Canadian family physician) Dr Yoni Freedhoff flew into a Twitter rage about Fung being a “fat-shamer”. On the face of it, that is a ridiculous assertion for anyone who has ever seen any of Fung’s presentations.
We’ve interviewed Fung, watched all his online presentations and followed his blog for years. Carl and I have always believed that he had an extraordinary compassion for obese patients. He also helps many for free.
No doubt, he makes a decent living treating patients in his clinic. However, he also gives away all the same techniques on YouTube for free for anyone to apply in their own lives.
For years, Fung has been critical of the obesity establishment. He blames them for failing to understand the obesity problem and for allowing the obesity epidemic to happen.
Recently, Fung posted a tweet, which specifically identified his problem with keynote “experts” at an obesity conference in New Orleans. They were concerned about genetics and calories rather than what is self-evidently the problem – hyperinsulinemia and the hormonal theory.
Fung also linked a picture to it. It was a mildly ironic tweet for those accustomed to his blunt style. Nevertheless, some found it offensive. A normal person might reach out to Fung to ask him to remove the tweet. Freedhoff, however, immediately cried “Fat-shamer!”.
Where was this fat shaming? Fung had not mentioned weight. Was it in the picture which he attached? That picture was provided by the conference itself. If Fung was fat-shaming, then surely so was ObesityWeek 2016 itself.
Freedhoff was the only one who observed that the two keynote speakers at an obesity conference were obese. We have not seen him apologise for being a fat-shamer.
A review of Freedhoff’s tweets of just the last month reveals the real issue here. This is only the latest in a long string of hateful tweets against different doctors.
Consider the evidence in black and white. To protect the innocent, we’ve redacted the names of the victims of his bullying.
On October 14, Freedhoff urges one doctor to “Delete your medical license”. For what? This poor man simply expressed his opinion.
He is not simply a family doctor like Freedhof is. He is, in fact, a Harvard-trained professor of surgery.
On October 26, Freedhoff calls another victim “idiotic” for having an opinion. Freedhoff, knowing he has a large Twitter following, immediately uses it to bully. This is cyber-bullying of the first order. We teach our kids not to do it, but Freedhoff, an assistant professor of family medicine at Ottawa University (@OttawaU), routinely engages in it.
On October 31, he publicly alleges that yet another doctor, a well-respected internal medicine specialist, is selling “bullshit”.
Also on October 31, Freedhoff accuses a doctor of “unflinching scumbaggedness”. He offers no proof other than his own opinion. This is all within the space of a few weeks.
Even as Fung apologised, Freedhoff, fellow cyber bullies and anti-keto trolls gloated over the Internet about how they “took him down”.
It was disgusting to read doctors and dietitians applauding this horrible behavior.
This has nothing to do with protecting the fragile egos of two obesity experts. This has everything to do with Fung’s continued success at reversing obesity and type 2 diabetes in thousands of patients. His success challenges their world view.
To complete the character assassination, Freedhoff had girlfriend Julia Belluz,who writes for Vox.com, to write an article composed entirely of his tweets. Belluz did not do any research.
(Editor’s note: Fung may not have helped himself much in his response to questions from Belluz by starting off, according to her article, saying: “Would you take financial advice from a homeless man?”. Belluz goes on to quote Fung saying that he did not aim his tweet at the experts’ weight, but rather the content of their talks. He said: “I think that these ‘experts’ have the wrong paradigm of obesity — that is, genetics and calories. I think both are irrelevant to obesity. My problem is not with them personally. My problem is that they are keynote speakers and set the agenda for the entire medical profession. Lots of people are saying that I’m fat-shaming. I’m not. I’m pointing out that our current understanding of obesity is totally wrong. And I see it every day in my practice, and it kills me.” That sounds reasonable enough to me.)
Hundreds of people who reversed their diabetes thanks to Fung know this accusation of fat-shaming to be ludicrous. They tweeted in defence of this man who has made such a difference in their lives. Freedhoff, of course, is silent.
However, Fung was only the latest in a long line of targets for his bullying.
Cyber bullies attack the person and avoid engaging the argument. That is the difference between a professional and a cyber bully.
- Dr Yoni Freedhoff is unrepentant. He responds:
“Decontextualised tweets aren’t evidence of cyber bullying. Nor was me calling out Fung who when questioned by Julia made his point crystal clear. According to him, the opinions of experts with obesity on obesity are as worth listening to as the opinions of the homeless on finance. Probably worth noting that in my tweets in response to Fung, not only did I not name him but, in fact, I refused to name him when asked. He later outed himself.
“Regarding the other tweets referenced, the ‘delete your medical account’ was directed at Dr Oz and his continued predation on the public with idiotic weight-loss messages.
“I’d make each and every one of (those tweets) again.”
- Click here for a full version of KetoDudes Bullying To Maintain Failed Status Quo
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yup – australian medical bullying is appalling.
Then they are doing the research wrong! Look at any diabetes forum and you will see thousands of success stories, diabetics who have improved or effectively normalised all their “health markers” and many have done so and continue to do so for 20 – 30 years and more.
A Type 2 diabetic I knew died aged 89, by which time he had had diabetes for 42 or 43 years and in all that time his disease had failed to progress. He put this down entirely to the fact that his dietitian had put him on a low-carb diet. Fifty years ago this was standard operating procedure.
Since then, the numbers of diabetics all over the world have exploded, along with many other metabolic diseases including of course obesity, all following the invention of the low-fat diet. No current diabetics will live that long without their health disintegrating, or to that age if they follow their dietitians’ instructions. I assume you are another dietitian attempting to justify this epic fail.
I find it hard to believe you call yourselves healthcare professionals when you not only don’t care about health but attack the increasing number of doctors who succeed in doing what you cannot, and who understand science and the increasing numbers of patients who do the same. Yet you boast about your sponsorship by Belvita and Cereal Partners.
Self-reported data an inherently unreliable, especially if they’re collected by subjects only. The data from diabetic patients are ofter referred to, but I have neither seen the actual data nor a decent analysis – wouldn’t you be somewhat sceptical of the data if it didn’t confirm your assumptions?
Without control, dietary interventions only test whether a (any) dietary intervention has an effect, and most have. Simply by watching ones diet one usually has some success. Many of those people you refer to would probably have a similar success with a different diet if they followed it with the same motivation – and that is essentially what all studies show: if there are differences between LC and LF (and most are fairly small), it is mainly due to compliance.
There are very few long-term studies (1 year and longer) – and they don’t support the claim of superiority. They actually don’t support any claim.
“Self-reported data are inherently unreliable, especially if they’re collected by subjects only. The data from diabetic patients are ofter referred to, but I have neither seen the actual data nor a decent analysis – wouldn’t you be somewhat sceptical of the data if it didn’t confirm your assumptions?”
No, because it complies with what else is known about physiology. There are actually somewhere in the region of 50 studies now, of varying length, which show the superiority of low carb/keto/”Mediterranean”/”Paleo” for many conditions. There could be more if anyone financed them but who is going to bite the hand that feeds them?
Much science today is actually “grant-seeking behaviour”, you know what you want to “prove” and figure out a way to achieve the results you have already decided upon. There was actually little “evidence” for low fat in the first place yet you want to keep it going until it is “definitively” proved wrong. Meanwhile people continue to suffer in their millions.
Unfortunately there aren’t – at least not long term. And this is not surprising because physiologically low-carb doesn’t suggest any superiority. Physiologically, carbohydrates are an important part of our diet – both as fibre and energy source (and our diet was based on carbohydrates for a very long time pre 1900).
Please show me one long-term study (1 year or longer) that was properly conducted (i.e. with a control) arm that showed superiority – I don’t know of any. In most studies, low carb and low fat perform fairly similarly.
Two years do you?
http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0708681
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00125-012-2567-4
There’s one that went on for 44 months but I can’t recall who it was.
More shorter studies here
https://authoritynutrition.com/23-studies-on-low-carb-and-low-fat-diets/
Clue: who would finance a long term study into low carb? Not the ADA for certain sure, they have been warning of the harm of LCHF for well over a decade now partly on the basis there are “no long term studies”.
If they’d followed up on the work of Mary Gannon and Frank Q Nuttall instead of pulling their grants when they persistently came up with the wrong answer, they could have a rolling ten year study by now. They would also have lost all their sponsors.
Now show me a study where HCLF shows a clear advantage for over two years.
I have your measure now, you are some kind of health statistician so your income depends on defending low fat. You believe it is the best thing since sliced bread and everyone who has failed over the last few decades is obviously not complying with the diet. All patients who claim LCHF improved their health must be liars, the proof is that they lied about HCLF making them worse which can’t be possible.
“Physiologically, carbohydrates are an important part of our diet ”
that’s the point, they are completely optional. Why do you think the body evolved to generate all the glucose it requires from protein and even fat and why do you think there are numerous hormones to increase blood glucose – glucagon, cortisol, epinephrine, norepinephrine etc. and only one – nsulin – which decreases it? What did we eat before wheat ever evolved?
Thanks for the studies, but they actually confirm my statement that there is no significant long-term benefit and that a low-carb diet is not superior.
The first study (http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa0708681) defines low-carb as 40% energy intake (which seems to be quite high). They do find a difference in weight loss between low-carb and low-fat after 24 months, but the difference is small and very close to the significance threshold (p=0.03 is not really very good – but that might be due to the huge variation). Moreover, there is no statistically significant difference between the low-carb diet and the ‘high-carb’ mediterranean diet (with 50% carbohydrate). Incidentally, 30% energy from fat is not really ‘low fat’). In summary, a weight-loss difference of about 2kg in 2 years is nothing I would call vastly superior.
The second study you mention (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00125-012-2567-4) uses 30% carbohydrate as low carb diet and doesn’t seem to show any significant difference in weight reduction (Figure 2) or HbA1c change (figure 3).
Perhaps I misunderstand you completely – but I don’t see how these two studies support the claim that low-carb diets are superior to low-fat diets in any way.
About the physiology: gluconeogenesis can’t create significant amounts of glucose from fat (how much it can actually create seems to be unclear, but it is not a major pathway), otherwise there wouldn’t be a need for ketone-bodies.
And finally: my income doesn’t have anything to do with this type of diet (I’m actually rather sceptical whether there is a strong link between diet and health) – but even if it was, it doesn’t change my observation that the studies I’m aware of (including those you mention) support a superiority of low-carb diets. Ad hominem attacks (funny – in a comment about cyber bullying) are not really conductive to scientific debate.
Here’s the 44-month one
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424054/
I posted the studies mainly for the benefit of anyone who hasn’t seen them yet, not for those who would just dismiss them.
Ladeez ‘n’genelmun, I shall now reveal the Elephant In The Room.
Everyone with any health condition is routinely monitored. An increasing number of well people are routinely monitored, just with lower frequency, in order to detect eg. statin deficiency at the earliest possible opportunity.
Everyone who eats low-carb will ALREADY have eaten low-fat, with very few exceptions. This provides a huge number of gold-standard experiments using the same subject pre- and post-intervention. This is a HUGE amount of data – or would be if someone paid to correlate it. Who do you think would do that then? Kelloggs? Unilever? Pfizer? Health charities? It’s not likely they would bite the hand that feeds them. NUSI? Not credible since Kevin Hall’s oh so clever hatchet job.
Until it is paid for, some will continue to call it “just anecdotes”.
In the meantime, you can justify attacks by the mediocre on the competent and knowledgeable who actually SUCCEED in improving health, which is what these posts are really all about.
Chris c – I’m sorry but why do you ignore the fact that the two long-term studies you posted do not show a significant benefit (or in one case a very week one)? Anyone who reads these studies will see exactly the same i.e. no effect justifying any claim of superiority.
The 44 month study is interesting, but without a control group doesn’t really say much about differences with other diets. It is however noticeable that weight follows the same J-shaped curve as in most other studies, i.e. participants initially improve but are unable to sustain it (as with low fat). Personally, I find the data on incidence and mortality difficult to interpret due to the small sample size and it not being adjusted e.g. for age and other factors.
So in summary, none of the studies you have presented to support the superiority of low-carb actually does so. It seems to work like any other diet that restricts or controls energy and observed differences appear to be mainly due to compliance. And that would be the problem from observational studies (which you suggest by using data from patients etc): nutrition and especially diet studies are incredibly difficult to conduct as often simply being on (any) diet has a beneficial effect, presumably because it results in a more ‘sensible’ eating pattern (lets ignore for the moment what is ‘sensible’) and a reduction in energy intake. I have reviewed a sufficient number of studies where this could be seen (and you can easily find a plethora of studies where there are beneficial effects in the control group). This effect becomes much stronger if personal believes are involved – participants will be much more compliant (compliance is a big problem in nutrition) and might subconsciously change their lifestyle.
It would be very interesting to analyse the Diabetes UK data that allegedly supports a low-carb approach, but as far as I know this data is not open to public scrutiny, even in anonymised forms.
And this is what concerns me somewhat: whether low-carb works or not, there are no long term studies that suggest it is _superior_ to low fat. However, proponents of low-carb diets are very vocal and resort fairly quickly to personal attacks (the very topic of this post), and indeed you seem to avoid the arguments and start to attack those opposing low-carb diets.
The claim that there is no funding is incidentally wrong. Some of the most vocal low-carb supporters (e.g Teichholz and Taubes) have access to quite generous funding, and the existing studies also suggest that funding is available. But the existing studies don’t really support the superiority and hence it will become more difficult.
It is fascinating – is it not – that cyberbullying is only relevant when oneself (or one’s allies) are affected. It never seems to be important otherwise. The “low carb” debate is poisoned, but I dare say the poison comes from both sides. Some low-carb proponents can be equally vicious and condescending and prefer sweeping accusations and personal attacks to a sensible discussion (I can think of very few who do – and they are not very dogmatic).
It is in particular noticeable that proponents of low-carb diets like to judge people based on their looks, their sex (or gender) and their affiliation while – at least in the UK – conveniently ignoring very similar conflicts of interest. (Professor Jebb was attacked for getting funding from Weightwatchers and Coca Cola in a very personal way – by people belonging to an organisation that received funding from Slimfast and Atkins; and incidentally Coca Cola).
One could of course try to resolve a disagreement using a civilised discussion using the appropriate channels – but that wouldn’t create so many column inches.
Perhaps it would be best for both sides to disarm and try to behave in a more civilised way.
Some of our UK dieticians are as bad: Catherine Collins and Chris Cashin posting under several identities turn up on various blogs and forums. And while I don’t use Facebook or Twitter someone I know reposts some of their worst material. They go after Dr Aseem Malhotra and Dr Rangan Chatterjee who actually “inappropriately” reversed diabetes on live TV. They can’t stand successful patients and see successful doctors as worse.
Meanwhile
http://lowcarbdiabetic.forumotion.co.uk/t2764-nestle-cereal-partners-uk-accepted-as-members-of-bda
Oh, do tell about these “several identities”? Why would they want to do that? Why not under their own identities?
Here’s what some members of the diabetic establishment get up to, stifle dissent: One of them (Chris Cashin, who used to be a director of the British Diabetes Association), used the name “Ally” on several blogs and a diabetes forum where she tried to scare people off low-carb diets on the basis they would “inevitably” get halitosis, constipation and dietary deficiencies. Nearly 12 years later and I’m still waiting for these inevitable consequences to occur. Even if they do, I think they are just slightly better than the “inevitable” amputations, kidney disease and blindness.
“Ally” turned up on Dr John Briffa’s blog, joined shortly by Cashin under her own name and I’m pretty sure a third identity to back herself up. This spilled over onto another blog, now mercifully deleted, where they were threatening to have Dr Briffa’s licence revoked for failing to follow Diabetes UK’s Diet of Death.
As far as I know, Catherine Collins has always posted as herself, she is the Big Gun (in more ways than one) brought in to silence critics of whoever was first on the scene.
I think it was this one
http://www.drbriffa.com/2008/06/25/why-might-a-leading-diabetes-charity-offer-dietary-advice-that-is-likely-to-increase-the-need-for-medication/
or an earlier post with a huge number of comments. You may need a caffeine IV to get through them all! Eight years later and they have still learned nothing, so no change there then.
Just to correct the misinformation generated by ‘Eddie’ and repeated by ‘chris c’ above.
I have one single identity on twitter. I never post under an alias. I have no need to.
And as a registered dietitian, I am expected to apply the same principles of professionalism in dealing with the public to social media. What others choose to do is up to them. Please do not continue to make these false allegations.
“As far as I know, Catherine Collins has always posted as herself, she is the Big Gun (in more ways than one) brought in to silence critics of whoever was first on the scene.”
You need new glasses! (So do I, I missed a comma in my first comment between you and Chris Cashin/Ally). So what do you think of HER use of different identities then?
More to the point, what exactly are YOU doing to improve the health of diabetics and decrease their numbers like Briffa, Malhotra, Chatterjee, Noakes, Fettke, Jennifer Elliott, Dahlqvist and all the others who have great success and yet come under attack?
“Eat the same healthy diet as nondiabetics” Ha! Obviously it ISN’T healthy or where would all the diabetics come from? They weren’t there before low fat was invented. Nor were all the fat people, nor the Alzheimers patients. Well people are now the MINORITY of the population. Do you feel proud?
The problem is however: in long term studies, the “low-carb” diets don’t seem to be so superior as claimed by those you quote. Indeed, HbA1c does not seem to improve long term when compared to other diets.
The National Obesity Forum in the UK (of which Dr Aseem Malhotra is a member) published an interesting report this summer. And while it claimed that there is overwhelming evidence to support a low-carb diet, the studies they have used for their ‘analysis’ actually showed the opposite: no long-term benefit.
Incidentally, the highest fat intake was in the 60s/70s (at least in the UK) – and currently fat intake is still considerably higher than in pre-war times. This would suggest that there should have been reduction in the number of people suffering from diabetes, Alzheimers and obesity during that time but somehow this isn’t the case. Moreover, there should have been an epidemic of diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease and obesity pre-1900, when carbohydrate was the main energy-supplying macronutrient, but again, this isn’t the case.
Very few people actually achieve the diet that is claimed to be responsible for so many diseases – in the Predimed study, which is often used as an example of the dangers of “low-fat”, the control group consumed approximately 40% of energy from fat.
It is – in my opinion – morally wrong to promise a silver bullet when all data show that there is no superiority. It gives false hopes. What is worse is to attack those who question this belief in a personal way and question not only their intelligence but also their motives and call them a danger to humanity. After all, we have the same objective.
Here Freedhoff compares Dr. Davis with an evangelical preacher.
https://youtu.be/eO3cIrNEuIc?t=23m36s
I have been a victim of the cyber bullies who frequent BBPE. They can be vicious. It is a shock the first time it happens. Then they block you so you can no longer post comments on their page.
My “sin: was correctly describing the difference between dietary ketosis and ketoacidosis and debunking the myth that dietary ketosis is dangerous. That’s incorrect misinformation that the anti-LCHF lobby use to scare people off an LCHF diet.
But one of these bullies took the cyber bullying much much further. He posted a fictitious review of my business practices on a USA “truth” website, complete with a commercially obtained photograph of a very obese man, who was supposed to be me – I’m female. Even though none of my business involves giving dietary advice and the fictitious review makes that assertion, the nasty review surfaces every time someone searches on my name. Obviously, that is costing me business referrals.
This USA website does not remove reviews unless you pay them a monthly and ongoing fee. So my cyber bully knew exactly what he was doing to me and my business. All because of a post clearly explaining the difference between dietary ketosis and ketoacidosis.
I am still amazed by the number of dietitians who do not clearly understand that dietary ketosis and ketoacidosis are different and that the production of ketones as fuel for the body is a normal metabolic pathway. The associated myth is that the brain needs carbohydrate foods so that it can get glucose to function. I’ve seen comments by so many dietitians to this effect, and as a reason to advise people from using a low-carbohydrate diet to go into ketosis. They don’t know that the brain does extremely well on ketones, thank you very much.
This level of cyber bullying is extreme. It is not just an attack on a person as a way of discrediting their opinion. It is a calculated and directed attack on the person and their business. It is targeted with the knowledge that the victim has no recourse and no ability to redress the situation.
I really can’t understand the mentality of the people who do this sort of cyber bullying. I don’t understand why their professional organisations do not censure them. When you read the Codes of Conduct associated with their professional organisations, this type of behaviour is not allowed. It does appear that particular professional organisations turn a blind eye, or office bearers actually condone the behaviour as it has continued for several years.
When you look at Maslow’s Heirachy of Maturity, you realise that these people have not evolved above Level 1. That begs the question whether those who are practising professionals – doctors, dietitians, exercise physiologists, nutritionists, exercise trainers etc – should be allowed to practise at all. They have a psychological and emotional maturity well below normal which would impact on their professional decision-making capacity.
Oh my heavens, Gillian. This is shocking. I am very sorry to hear what has happened to you. I always knew that Blocked By Pete Evans was a toxic site, but I had not idea quite how vicious they can be. They surpass decent people’s expectations, clearly. I find it particularly repulsive that doctors and dietitians support it with nasty comments aimed at other health professionals – or anyone at all. I can understand why dietitians in Australia get away with it. They are unregulated and that is very dangerous.
Their association has questionable ethics itself. It is in bed with food and drug industries. Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency (AHPRA) doesn’t consider them health practitioners. That’s telling!
But for doctors to be active on hate pages is just awful! They of all people should know better.
I find that the level of ignorance among many dietitians and even some doctors of basic body biochemistry is shocking. They just hear the “k” word (ketones) and their brains turn to mush. Too many carbs, probably. It’s a phenomenon I’ve come across while covering the Health Professions Council of SA vexatious case against Prof Tim Noakes as well. Both doctors and dietitians showed shocking ignorance about ketones, ketosis and ketoacidosis. All I could think of was: Their poor patients!
The website that allows vexatious reviews is also acting unethically. They don’t bother to check the agendas of people placing reviews on it? Then charge people to protect themselves from unfair reviews? That’s disgusting, unethical business practice if ever I heard one. I hope they do the decent thing in future. Like many people in supposedly “caring” professions, they too are more concerned with money than morals.
Gillian, they must feel very threatened. A group that was confident about the science would behave like professionals. Deep down, I think they lack confidence and they know that their future is bleak. They can continue to do harm or have the courage to face up to their disastrous advice.
I had a look at the BBPE site and one part made me laugh. They claimed that they were unfairly blamed for the obesity crisis and defended themselves by saying that only 4% of people fully followed their guidelines. If that’s so, what’s the use of a so-called profession that’s ignored by 96% of the public? The truth is that most people are eating some low-fat, high-sugar junk as a result of these dimwits’ advocacy of low-fat.
The fact that they don’t know the difference between ketosis and ketoacidosis shows how worthless their third-rate degrees are.
Well said, Stephen. I’m happy to say they are the first hate page I’ve had the misfortune to have to look closely at, while doing research on the case of Australian orthopaedic surgeon. It was even mentioned in a recent Australian Senate Inquiry. They really are an unpleasant, toxic bunch of cyber bullies. Gillian’s experience is not uncommon. What I find particularly disturbing is the doctors, nurses, midwives, and dietitians who take part. The ignorance they display about basic body biochemistry, never mind low-carb, high-fat therapeutic diets, is simply staggering. So much so that it verges on funny at times. Monty Python would have had a field day with them.
They started off attacking celebrity Australian Paleo chef Pete Evans – hence their name. They clearly can’t find enough to sustain attacks on Evans. Now they attack anyone who says anything they don’t like about nutrition and weight loss. They only go for successful people. Other people’s success diminishes them. It’s not coincidental that they only ever get a flurry of comments from supporters when they say hateful things about successful people. That says it all. Mob rule on a hate page. Real science shuts them up quickly. They have filthy mouths and minds. Best to ignore them. Cyber bullies hate to be ignored.
I agree, Marika. Any decent professional would disassociate themselves from a site containing so much ignorance and unpleasantness.
When diabetics ignore their advice and eat low-carb, they make dramatic improvements. When people wanting to lose weight eat a diet low in carbohydrates and high in natural fats, they can finally control their appetites, lose weight and all heart bio-markers go dramatically in the right direction. This is just unacceptable! It makes dietitians not just irrelevant to health, but positively harmful. I think this explains their anger. Too many real scientists are doing work that makes their recommendations look plain stupid.
There’s something of a diabetics rebellion in the UK. The attached link explains more. Unfortunately the headline perpetuates the misunderstanding about high protein, but the main point about the frustration of diabetics and the improvement they make when they ignore dietitians is made clear.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3617076/Diabetes-patients-defy-NHS-Thousands-rebel-against-guidelines-controlling-condition-diet-low-carbohydrates.html
On the subject of bullying, this is really a sad state of affairs. Will it degenerate into “who shouts the loudest” or who posts the most comments? Clearly, a group could sabotage a page on FB with voluminous comments which would very quickly destroy it’s raison d’etre. I am trying to find a solution to this, but none is forthcoming.
I’m open to writing about solutions! Let me know if you come across a good one.
I started reading Dr. Freedhoffs post when he maintained his blog on the web page “weighty matters”. He subsequently discontinued accepting comments on this blog and switched using FB for his blog and comments.
While he sill accepted comments on his web page, I often criticized his post for not have any science to support what he was saying. When he moved to FB, I did pretty much the same, being critical of making unsubstantiated statement devoid of science to support them. Soon I found myself BLOCKED from post any comments on the page. I guess Dr. Freedhoff does not like dissent. If you are not one of his groupie’s, you get blocked. Of course I am not missing much because, like Dr. Katz, he has nothing useful to offer the general public.