Blinded by Science

For years I have heard about the evils of the AMA from chiropractors and dietitians, and sometimes doctors have done themselves a disservice by barely listening in consultations and only offering up a drug or surgical solutions to problems. But I am not here to tell you to avoid doctors or not to use antibiotics when you need them. The advances in medicine over the last 100 years are mind boggling and almost all of us know someone who's life was saved by a great doctor. What I would like to advocate for is some balance from the AMA. Doctors can be a skeptical bunch (it took them years to believe that sterilizing their hands before surgery could stop infections) but they need to see that there may be alternatives other than drugs and surgery.

The NY Times article Epilepsy’s Big, Fat Miracle chronicles the story of a writer who's son has epilepsy. The child was experiencing as many as 130 seizures a day. These are not the kind of seizures where you fall to the ground and convulse, but they are very debilitating. The kid blacks out for a few seconds at a time, making it hard for him to learn to read, watch a movie, ride a bike, swim or do just about any other kid activity. The family tried almost every drug available, but the side effects were terrible and the seizures continued. Finally they heard about an alternative dietary treatment that made a huge difference. The idea is to put the body in ketosis, where you drastically reduce the amount of carbs you take in and the body begins to burn fat. Amazingly this has an antiepileptic effect and reduced the child's seizures by 80%. The problem is the diet is very hard to maintain. The mother in the family had quit her job so she can take care of her son full time. The hope is that after two years on this diet and a reduced drug regimen the child will be seizure free and able to return to a regular diet.

All this is to make a point. The doctors in this story were initially very resistant to look at diet as a course of treatment. I imagine it seemed too simple to them or not worthy of their scientific training, but now over 100 hospitals offer this treatment. The ironic thing is that dietary treatments are not even a new idea:

In the 1930s, three scientists won a Nobel Prize for discovering that a substance in raw liver cured pernicious anemia, a disease that was almost always fatal. Eight Nobels were awarded just for work related to vitamins. And, it turns out, the ketogenic diet was developed back in the early part of the last century, too, only to disappear from medical literature for two generations.

The article goes on to suggest there may be dietary regimens that can help in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer, as tumors need glucose to grow and there is very little sugar in a keto diet. It is already reducing tumors in test mice. How ironic would it be it after all the ridicule he took in the 1990's if Dr. Atkins was right?