Another Paleo Doc Rings In
Great email from a newly minted Paleo MD. He was enthusiastic about having it published.
I’ve been looking for local people with similar points of view around my area and stumbled on your blog a few months ago. I had no idea you were in the San Jose area. I’m an Emergency Physician who works in San Jose. I’ve been a paleo convert for 4 months and my entire family is eating that way. I plan on living disease-free and this, to my best knowledge is the only way to do it. Life is quite different now that I know better than to trust conventional medical theories to treat patients. When I see patients now I run down their medication lists and quickly stop statins and antacids (proton pump inhibitors, Zantac etc.) and any other useless medication that they’ve been on for years and never questioned. You’d be amazed how many women are on statins (never been shown to help them) and people over 65 (again, useless). Those medications that they really can’t stop (type I DM on insulin) I counsel them about dietary changes. The look on their faces when I tell them to eat saturated fat and more meat is priceless.
The nice thing about the hospital where I work is that we do not accept honorarium from pharmaceutical companies and even more importantly: They aren’t allowed on our property to solicit MD’s. I get the greatest reward when I call many of these patients on follow up and find out that they’re doing better – especially when they lose the grains from their diet. That still doesn’t stop stupidity at our institution though. I recently had a 35 year-old male admitted with angina (90% involvement of LAD and ended up with 2 stents… sigh). I told him to increase saturated fat and protein afterwards. The note afterwards was from his angry primary doctor who wrote ("ER MD told him to eat more fat and protein. Consulted nutritionist on advising patient to go on low-fat ADA cardiac diet"). I almost punched the computer screen.
Anyways. If you’re ever in need of emergency care in the area, there is a Paleo-friendly Emergency Physician around!
I’m going to put him in touch with some of the other paleo-friendly docs via email. Maybe they can get some sort of network going. Things are looking up.
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Oh how I love seeing this!
Shameless plug (Richard, feel free to delete this comment if you deem it lame — I will not be offended) — I am trying to put together a list of various resources for PaleoHacks. Blog, products and….physicians as well.
Absolutely! Nice to see things going well over there. Off to a great start.
This is very good!
Can that list include medical students? As a long time lurking medical student, I would like that. Anything to help me with the nutritional idiocy I see around here.
Great. Maybe he can join up with Dr. Harris, Dr. McGuff, me, and others in our quest to set up a lifestyle-based co-op in California to finance Ancestral Health(care).
Cheers,
Brent
I know Jimmy Moore at one point had some sort of Paleo friendly Doc’s list. Would be nice if there was a website dedicated to it. Wish I could find a Paleo friendlyDoc up here in Ottawa Ontario, Canada.
Right here:
lowcarbdoctors.blogspot.com/
Unfortunately no doc from Michigan included in the list.
That helps explain why there are so many fatties around here.
That’s a short list of docs.
What we really need is a list of Paleo PhDs.
Hi Rick,
I’m in Ottawa too. I don’t know if you can email through this system. If not comment me back and we’ll figure something out. I figure we should meet. I am not an MD, just another really happy person who changed his diet,
David
Sounds good to me. Now how do you do that without broadcasting an email address in a comment :-)
Why don’t we both email Richard asking him to link us up? He can forward our emails to each other. hey presto!
Sounds good to me. Rick, I have David’s email from WAY back. Email me and I’ll get you too together.
Hi! From a bit east of Ottawa and my cow-share is south of Ottawa. Hook me up, too, please! (Hey, how’s that for a side-biz, Richard?)
Kristina
Hey, me 3 please. I’m west of Ottawa in the valley. Maybe we should start up a mee(a)t-up group.
Love the site, follow on twitter and facebook. I am trying very hard to stick to the Paleo way. Being Irish, love potatoes so much. keep up the good news.
I think potatoes are fine in reasonable amounts as your primary source of starch. You can eat plenty of potato and still keep carbs well under 100g per day if you need to.
Richard, how do you feel regarding white potatoes vs. sweet potatoes?
In the quantities I eat them I don’t think it makes a huge difference. Carbs are less in the sweet potatoes and there’s some concern about toxins in white potatoes, being a neolithic food cultivated in Peru about 3,000 years ago, I think.
Bottom line is it’s not a big deal to me, but I also keep it real. I don’t eat them every day.
dang, beat me to it. I had the same issue. I have lived off mashed potatoes. While playing Rugby and exercising i lived off sweet potatoes and rice! seem to be swapping one bad for another bad. or like has been said, in moderation, like eggs only a few a week?
You can eat as many eggs as you want. Cook them in butter, coconut oil, ghee, lard or bacon drippings.
Eggs (the yolks) are hugely nutritious. I believe they contain just about every essential vitamin & mineral, save for C.
I was practically raised on potatoes growing up in pre WWII, during and post war Germany. I still love potatoes. But now, instead of eating a whole baked potato, I eat a quarter with lots and lots of butter on it.
(“ER MD told him to eat more fat and protein. Consulted nutritionist on advising patient to go on low-fat ADA cardiac diet”). I almost punched the computer screen.”
I feel your pain. I work at a cardiac homecare agency and guess what our patients are told to eat? So frustrating when we could get them off statins and eating right and 300mg of Ubiquinol and they’d do so much better.
I don’t like being a part of a broken system.
At my recent physical examination, I spoke at length regarding my diet changes to my primary care doctor. He was interested in some of the concepts and seemed genuinely interested in finding out more. He’s open-mindedness certainly made me feel better about being under his care.
Growing up, I always seemed to think that doctors had to be infallible and know everything about health in order to do their job. I now feel like medicine is fractured like so many other highly educated professions, along ideological and scientific fault lines.
I never saw a Doctor until about 5 years ago on a routine physical. he told me i have this Metabolic Syndrome X, and this is what you need to do to correct it….take this pill for the rest of your life (nothing else will fix this issue). 5 years later I pick up a book called the Paleo Diet and stumble upon these sites. never did start those pills though!
Hit the post button too soon. Was going to continue to say that I do tell who I can. Most of them give me that look like I’ve just set a puppy on fire. Advocating increased fat doesn’t fly well in the cardiovascular community! Maybe one day I can have an impact on the patients, but I’m not holding my breath.
I’m impressed that he can tell people to stop statins & eat sat fat & get away with it. Wow …
Beth
I was thinking the same thing! I just assumed doctors had to puke up the old CW they learned in med school so they would not be sued spouting off their personal beliefs.
>>300mg of Ubiquinol
I just decided that taking CoQ10 is probably a bad idea. I was taking it & went low carb. My cholesterol went way up and I now think that was the cause. Briefly, people’s bodies normally make CoQ10. If you take it in a pill, it sends a feedback signal that it doesn’t need to be made, so you become deficient if you don’t take it.
Beth
I am concerned about this. Do you have a reference regarding this feedback inhibition? or is it from a Biochem textbook? Thanks.
Perhaps when statins are involved then exogenous CoQ10 is necessary anyway since the statin pathway inhibits the production of CoQ10 already.
I tried to get off Prilosec this week using apple cider vinegar. But I think I need to lose a bit of weight first. Acid radiates and torments my throat without the medication, so I had to start it again (sucking on Tums until it kicked back in). Since I’ve only recently begun a paleo diet I think I’ll wait until I’ve lost about 40lbs before I try again.
You might look into the supplement Protexid, which Dr. Eades offers:
He was giving it away free (the post explains it all) so I have some but have not had need to try it, thankfully.
Alan:
You’ve given me an idea for a post. How to get off PPIs (I was on them for years).
Coming up soon.
I can’t wait. It’s very frustrating having to rely on medication just so I can get through the day without any discomfort. And even then once in a while I have to suck on a Tums at night just so I can sleep.
I’d be surprised if you had to wait until you lost 40 lbs. My moderately severe acid reflux went away after about 1 month of eating Paleo.
I was a consumer of large amounts of Tums and Rolaids, until the “Wonder Drug” inhibitors became available. I was on them for about 15 years, last was Omeprozole, which is Kaiser’s formulary for Pepsid. I went off of it almost a year ago, with not a hint of heartburn since I went off the medication. Told my doc that I went off, his answer, “Great.”
I was on PPI’s for a very long time, and it was from undiagnosed Celiac disease. Changed my diet, and the GERD is gone.
Thanks for this post, Richard. It is nice to see another Paleo/low carb doc. My doc is on board, and he encourages low-carb eating and hardly ever prescribes statins.
My good friend just received her lipid numbers and her cholesterol is only mildly high, and she is a bit overweight. Her doc immediately terrorized her about it and put her on statins, and then sent her to a dietitian who is putting her on a “heart-healthy” low-fat diet. I’ve tried to encourage her to try a Paleo diet, but she barely reads anything I send her, and she won’t watch Fat Head either. Today I literally begged her to see my doctor to get a second opinion, and she said she’d “consider it,” but I doubt she will. She’s been scared into submission to Big Medicine. Short of kidnapping her and forcing her to eat Paleo for 3 months, there’s not much I can do.
It’s difficult to see people you care about buy into the lie and get sicker because of the brainwashing of the masses.
So, Paleo Emergency Doc, kudos to you! Keep up the good work! We need more of you!!
I’ll be eagerly waiting a list of California Paleo MD’s to be posted somewhere. I’m still looking in Norcal.
Check dr. Dahlqvist’s website in Sweden. When she started giving similar advice they tried to pull her licence, but an investigation determined she was right! Sweden is now leading the LCHF charge in Europe.
Yes. In Sweden you have Staffan Lindeberg in the lead. His site is:
staffanlindeberg.com/
Unfortunately they have priced his book so high I have yet to have someone buy a copy (off my paleo pages):
Excellent and informative web site. The book looks good, but you’re right about the price. Why on earth is it so expensive?
I asked Staffan that. His reply: “Yes, the price is a bit high. Am not sure why.”
I am printing this post, and take it with me when I see my new doc at Kaiser-Permanente (for my annual physical) whom I haven’t met yet, see what he says.
Wow, 13 pages. But well worth it, especially if it has some effect on how he treats his patients.
“Consulted nutritionist on advising patient to go on low-fat ADA cardiac diet”
Because I’m sure he wasn’t on the low-fat, high-carb diet before the trouble. It should have read: Advised patient to continue doing what he was doing as it seems to be working exactly as intended.
I just about convinced my dad that paleo/primal was the way to go. It was food he loved and he was finally getting interested in eating well.
Then he went and talked to a doctor friend and now he’s all about The China Study. ::headdesk::
Have your dad read the post Richard posted about his dad, and the
improvement in health and weight loss.
I was in the hospital (4-1/2 days) back in August 2009 for a severe kidney infection… the crap the dietitian was trying to feed me… on a “clear liquid diet” they had bouillon cube “broth,” Jell-o, fruit juice, etc., all packaged. When they finally gave me “solid food,” knowing I am a type II diabetic, they gave me pasta, bread, rice, potatoes, etc. , very little meat, margarine (no butter at all). When the dietitian came to see me to find out why I was eating less than half of such nutritious meals, I asked her if she thought this stuff was appropriate to feed a diabetic. She said “yes.” I was floored. I told her I’d eat meat and vegetables, but no bread, pasta, rice, or potatoes. I forgot to ask for butter.
Every night I was there, they tried to give me a statin drug, which I refused. I think I annoyed them.
When I finally got home and started making bone broths again, it tasted like ambrosia to me.
My hat is off to any doctor (MD, DO, or otherwise) or other medical professional who has enough intellectual honesty and cojones to go paleo and to get away from the standard advice they give us regarding diet.
As a transcriptionist, I see that some of the patients have put themselves on fish oil, but at both hospitals whose transcription I do, they still give statins to everybody and advise a “heart-healthy” ADA diet, or low-cholesterol, low-fat diets. Even if you’re a 90-year-old woman who maybe has six months to live, they’ll give you a statin.
One of the hospitals is a teaching hospital, and all the residents, etc. dictate in their reports that the patients are getting statins. They’re getting handed out to everybody.
My sig. other was in the hospital in January for a few days. They gave him the same discharge advice for food… eat a low-fat, low-cholesterol diet. I interrupted the idiot discharge (nurse, I think he was) to protest that the cholesterol theory of heart disease is pure bullshit and just not correct. He got a deer-in-the-headlights look about him and kept prattling on.
I don’t think I can get my sig. other to go totally paleo, but since I do nearly all the cooking and he will eat nearly anything I can rustle up, he’s getting a lower-carb diet than he had when he lived alone, except that he will eat bread, chocolate milk, etc.
I’ve now gotten to the point that when I tried a little bit of a banana pudding “cobbler” dessert at a local Chinese buffet, it tasted bad to me, and I had no desire to finish the bowl I’d brought to my table. This would formerly have been the kind of gooey dessert I would have eaten in mass quantities and with great gusto.
Some nights I think that, oh, I’d like a gooey dessert of some kind. But it passes. It’s more of an intellectual thing when I’m kind of bored, not a compulsion anymore.
Specifically, I’m following the anti-candida diet for which another commenter on your board had provided a link. I’m pleased with it. It’s going to be a slower route than what you have done, Richard.
We’ve been contemplating getting the hell out of California permanently and going to a relatively small town in Northern Arizona. One of the things I’ve discovered about the area is that there is at least one rancher out there who raises sheep, goats, and chickens more or less organically, so he sells milk, eggs, and meat. The meat is fairly reasonable in price too; when we finally get there, I’m going to buy fresh food from him.
If low fat was the answer, most people would loose weight. My current doc is fantastic. She supports my no grain/junk food/milk products way of eating. All of my other docs fed me the same eat more grains and take lots of meds for your diabetes BS.
Incidentally, current doc is is fantastic shape( 50+ and hot bod ) unlike the other doctors I have had.