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“Integrated” – but not how we imagined it

So the NHS has got the message that nutrition is the answer to diabetes. It can prevent it, and put Type 2 into remission. Did we win that battle, only to lose out?

The NHS has decided to expand its world-beating Diabetes Prevention Programme. Its aims: weight loss, improved nutrition and more physical activity. Where we’re losing out is that the NHS is not going to be recruiting nutritional therapists and naturopaths any time soon. It’s all going to be done “in house”.

And part of the roll-out will be a 5,000-patient trial of the very low-calorie liquid diet (plus follow-up support) that has already proved its worth in the Diabetes UK-funded DIRECT trial.

Championed by Prof Taylor of Newcastle University and Prof Mike Lean at the University of Glasgow, this approach – which kicks off with an 800-calorie a day phase using meal replacement shakes – produced remission of Type 2 in just a year. Cost savings to the NHS are going to be enormous: there are 3.4 million people with Type 2 in England alone, with around 200,000 new diagnoses every year.

Not quite critical enough?

We were sad to hear of the death – at 55 – of leading orthodox medicine critic Dr. Lisa Schwartz, MD, MS. Her life’s work was warning patients about the dangers of unnecessary medical tests and treatment, and excessive diagnoses.

“More diagnoses mean more money for drug manufacturers, hospitals, physicians and disease advocacy groups,” Dr Schwartz and colleagues wrote in The New York Times in 2007. “While failing to make a diagnosis can result in lawsuits, there are no corresponding penalties for overdiagnosis.”

According to the NYT, they warned of “the medicalisation of everyday life” and an “epidemic of diagnoses”.

“Everyday experiences like insomnia, sadness, twitchy legs and impaired sex drive now become diagnoses: sleep disorder, depression, restless leg syndrome and sexual dysfunction,” they wrote.

“If children cough after exercising, they have asthma; if they have trouble reading, they are dyslexic; if they are unhappy, they are depressed; and if they alternate between unhappiness and liveliness, they have bipolar disorder”.

Dr Schwartz’s concern was that while these diagnoses might benefit a few people with severe symptoms, “…one has to wonder about the effect on the many whose symptoms are mild, intermittent or transient”.

The irony, or tragedy, depending how you look at it is that Dr Schwartz – described by The Globe as “a beacon for medical clarity and accuracy” – died of cancer.

“Lisa never lost her capacity to be truly angry about corruption, misinformation and lack of scientific rigour in the system”, Robert Drake, a fellow Geisel School professor, said in his eulogy. Unfortunately, it has to be said, she became trapped in that very system.

Having paid tribute to her fight against the excesses and disinformation endemic in orthodox medical practice, the NYT in its obituary stated disingenuously: “As for her own illness, Dr Schwartz received an accurate diagnosis and coped with seven years of uncertainty as she underwent several versions of chemotherapy”

Welcoming the SIBO Queen and the King of Alzheimer’s

We’ve got some amazing CPD lined up for you this year. Announced on
www.ihcanconferences.co.uk and on page 16 in this issue are some of the main speakers for our 2019 conferences. They include the “Queen of SIBO” – naturopathic physician Dr Allison Siebecker, ND, MSOM, LAc, one of the world’s leading educators on all things gut; and the King of Alzheimer’s – Prof Dale Bredesen, MD – the only researcher in the world to demonstrate consistent recovery from dementia in series of patients.

SIMON MARTIN, EDITOR

Keep up with Simon on Twitter@simoncamedit