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Monday 7 September 2015

"Trust a dietitian" Follow the money first.

In the UK, The British Dietetic Association have been running a campaign to raise the profiles of UK dietitians with the strap line ""Trust a dietitian" for a considerable time. That implies to me they are suffering from an image problem. Let's face it, you don't see an association of professional pilots, saying "Trust A Pilot" When I board a commercial airliner, it never enters my head whether I should be trusting the pilot, I take it as read, he or she is highly competent, full stop.

Let's get one thing straight, over the years I have met some truly fantastic dietitians and nutritionists, highly knowledgeable, highly ethical and the well-being of their patients or clients is the number one priority. They did not ask me to trust them, why would they? I have never met a Doctor who pleaded with me to trust him or her. Get my drift. That being said, I have reasons to not want to trust many dietitians I have encountered. Far too many times I have seen information and articles, from dietitians urging me to consume a food, that has proved to be a serious health hazard to me and countless millions, namely sugar

"Don't fall for the sugar witch hunt. vDietDoc explains why we need carbohydrates in our diet and why demonising sugar and carbohydrates is not useful or accurate. Currently there is a relentless campaign against the use of even a single grain of sugar in our diet. The proponents of this “sugar witch-hunt” are as fanatical as any Medieval Crusader and probably just as misguided."

So says Dr Ingrid van Heerden a registered dietitian in an article at Health24 which can be found here. No ambiguity there, go against big sugar and you are a fanatic and misguided. Let's not forget sugar has zero useful nutrients, and the epidemics of obesity and it's often linked type two diabetes. Many of the worlds leading experts on obesity, including Dr. Robert Lustig believe sugar has played a major role in aforementioned health disasters.


I found myself asking, does Dr Ingrid van Heerden have any interest in promoting sugar. My first search on Google found this information from The Glutamate Advisory Council of South Africa. Who say "MSG is the sodium salt of glutamic acid, which is an amino acid found in most proteins. It is produced by a natural fermentation process from sugar and molasses, sugar beet, starch or corm sugar" And you guessed it, Dr Ingrid van Heerden, Registered Dietician is the Chairman of the Professional Panel of the Glutamate Advisory Council of South Africa.

By all means trust a dietitian, but first check them out and if they are involved in junk food, which so many are, give them a wide berth. BTW I am not a dietitian and I have nothing to sell. Consider my free advice, keep well away from sugar and I personally would not touch a food containing MSG with a ten foot pole. 

Link to the MSG information here.

Information on lack of nutrients in sugar here.

Have a good week.

Eddie

7 comments:

Crafty Green Poet said...

I worry about the industry links with a whole range of medical and paramedical professionals to be honest.

I once had an appointment with a dietician and although she was very nice and tried to be helpful, I actually knew more about the issues than she did

Blogoratti said...

Interesting thoughts indeed, have a good week!

Jennifer Hays said...

I have to be honest, I barely trust anybody, even doctors. I've had so very scary experiences with medical errors, including one that very nearly cost our daughter's life when I was pregnant with her. I think it's good to be skeptical about all medical and health-related information. You seem very committed to doing your own research and I think that's commendable.

Gail said...

I learn so much here.

Thanks, Jan, your kind words make me blush. I do not think Dismaland would be a good place but maybe one day to see how wonderful our real life is. It was part of the prompt.

Have a very blessed week.

Jo said...

I eat sugar periodically. I eat everything periodically. I think it depends on your own metabolism. I eat chocolate daily, in small amounts, and these days have more problem with low sugars than high. That, as a result of losing weight.

chris c said...

Follow the money, as always. All diabetes, heart and dietetic organisations in pretty much any country you choose are bankrolled by the same cartel of drug companies, carbohydrate processors and margarine manufacturers.

There was a paper published by Diabetes UK and financed by The Sugar Bureau, with about 30 subjects. Doctors are told this is "evidence based medicine" while the stories of hundreds if not thousands of well controlled diabetics are "just anecdotes".

When John Buse was in charge of the ADA, they decided that perhaps low carb diets weren't such a bad thing provided they were only used to lose weight, not for glucose control, and that they were used for less than a year and contained no less than 135g carbs.

Several of their sponsors pulled their financial support.

The ADA claims that "Medical nutrition therapy" can only achieve something like a maximum of 2% improvement in A1c. Yet in their very own forum people were routinely reporting improvements of 5 - 8% and even over 10% by low carbing.

For over ten years they were claiming there were no long term studies of low carb diets. Guess what? If they'd started one ten years ago they'd now have 10 years of data. But a lot less money.

DeniseinVA said...

Great article! I learn a lot by coming here.