Please, people, stop the conspiracy theories about doctors

PALEO Pete Evans says a lot of things that don’t add up, and that’s fine. But his conspiracy theory about doctors goes way too far.

‘Food is Medicine’ reads Pete Evans’ T-shirt. Also, medicine is medicine. Picture: Justin Brierty

WRITING about Pete Evans is like writing about Thermomix. Some people will applaud you, many others will tell you you’re a moron, and everyone will have an opinion.

And that’s fine. Bring it on. I can take it.

What I cannot take is the nonsense surrounding Pete Evans and other alternative health practitioners (and I use that term very loosely: Pete Evans is actually a chef). The conspiracy theories. The claims against the medical profession.

I don’t follow the Paleo diet. I don’t follow any diet. I particularly don’t follow any diet whose main claim to fame is that “cavemen ate like that” because, well, you know, cavemen died really young. But that’s not my point.

I know people who eat Paleo, and they feel it works for them. Either they’ve lost weight, or have less stomach cramps, or lower cholesterol. Great.

However — and it’s a big “however” — this doesn’t make Evans a doctor. It doesn’t even make Evans a dietitian. Evans didn’t invent the Paleo diet, he simply reworked it for popular consumption. And yet Evans and many of his ilk claim to know things about medicine and science that “most doctors don’t know”.

The advice Pete Evans recently gave a Facebook follower.

Now, let’s consider this for a moment. A doctor goes to medical school for between six and 10 years. They then practice in their specialised field, keep up with the latest research, go to medical conferences, and see hundreds of patients with the same diseases. Scientists study for years at university, then continue in their field of research for decades afterwards.

And yet somehow a celebrity chef — who spends his life writing recipe books, appearing on TV and getting a tan (without sunscreen, because that’s “poisonous”) – knows things that they don’t know? Does that really seem plausible to you?

But wait. There’s more illogicality! Because some other people (many of whom will pop up here in the comments, mark my words) believe that doctors DO actually know this stuff that Evans knows but claims doctors don’t know. The doctors are just hiding the truth from us all to keep us all sick so that they can earn more money.

So Evans’ diet does shrink tumours, but the oncologists don’t want us to know about it, because it will put them out of business. Oncologists, you see, love it when people have cancer, and want nothing more than to not make them better.

And Evans’ claims that calcium from dairy removes calcium from bones is perfectly accurate. Of course, the medical director of osteoporosis hides this fact, because …. um … OK, I’m not actually sure why the medical director of osteoporosis would hide the truth. Perhaps he gets a kickback from the dairy industry?

It’s maddening, this deep cynicism of the medical profession. I think about the 19th century, before modern medicine, where people died in childbirth and of influenza and measles, and I feel deeply grateful for the resources and knowledge we have available today.

And yet people wilfully turn away from it, claiming vaccines cause autism (doctors hide the truth because they are in cahoots with Big Pharma), coffee enemas / juice cleanses / turmeric are more effective than chemo (doctors hide the truth because if patients get better they are out of business), and medically assisted labour is dangerous (doctors hide the truth because they want mothers to die in childbirth like they did in the old days).

Now, I am not a doctor. I do not come from a medical family. (OK, my uncle is an oncologist, but he’s my uncle by marriage so it doesn’t really count.) I am not in cahoots with Big Pharma. I do, however, have health issues that would have killed me without medical intervention.

And I know many doctors who are deeply committed to helping people. GPs who are always running late because they spend so much time with each patient (and, side note, they don’t get paid more to run overtime, they do it out of caring). Oncologists who are thrilled when their patients thrive and are devastated when they die. Surgeons who are shattered when they have to deliver bad news to families. Cardiologists passionate about helping people to live longer. And the list goes on.

Yes, there are no doubt sub-par doctors out there. There are bad eggs in every field. But for the most part, doctors want to save lives and help people. There are far easier ways for smart people to make a buck than to study for 10 years and work 18-hour days.

So please, people, stop the conspiracy theories. If you find something that works for you, that’s brilliant. But if your doctor isn’t recommending it, it’s not because they don’t want you to know about it. It’s because it is either untested, unproven, or simply utterly untrue.

And sadly, much of what Paleo Pete recommends falls straight into the third category.

Sunscreen, anyone?

Kerri Sackville writes the blog Love and Other Crises. Follow her on Facebook.