It was great meeting there a few of the movers and shakers on this site,
@Goonergal,
@Dr Snoddy and
@Hiitsme yesterday evening at the APPG meeting within the Houses of Parliament. The time flew by at just one and half hours with Keith Vaz chairing and "heavy weights" Dr Zoe Harcombe, Dr Aseem Malhotra, Dietitian Trudi Deakin and MP Tom Watson on the panel. Ivor Cummins is not only a brilliant engineer / scientist but he doubled last night as a videographer. Micheal Mosley and Dr David Unwin were also present in the audience.
Tom Watson, came across as genuinely wishing to influence public health policy. He is "irritated" by the amount of cola children consume and said "....
If I cannot feel this good without breaking the guidelines my government give me" He turned around his diabetes in around 6 weeks, but waited a year to be sure. He cut out refined sugars and carbs and had keto flu for 2 - 3 days. He described himself as an amateur bio-hacker who is now has more cognitive function, better concentration and is more compassionate.
Aseem Malhotra provided a fact based presentation, such as two thirds of the adults in the UK are overweight or obese, 5 billion spent on obesity related matters and 20 billion on Type 2 overall. Not sure if this is a new term but he stated 80 -90% adults are "Overfat" in the UK, i.e. have excess body fat. Aseem pointed out that eminence and ignorance trump facts and sets back the low carb adoption when persons such as Prof Jim Mann (WHO) state that low carb diets are dangerous due to a lack of fibre; only to be proved wrong by people like Dr Caryn Zinn (which does not make the headlines (circa 38 - 45 grams of fibre in a well formulated diet)).
Zoe Harcombe detailed how the 1977 US guidelines and 1983 UK equivalents put carbs at around 55%, and that there has been a gradual increase to around 62% of calories made up of carbs. The "takeaways" were "don't let fake food set the guidelines", "all patient choice" and I don't have note of the 3rd (hopefully this will go up on Zoe's website). Zoe provided a robust response to a lady representing the benefits on bariatric surgery, by questioning why re-plumbing one's internal internals to their bottom (paraphrasing) should be a last resort as opposed to the inference from the questioner that it should be at the forefront - Aseem chimed in (on what was a difficult moment for the questioner to put it lightly) with the technical BMI numbers at which surgery would be granted, stating that many ~Type 2's fail this criteria anyway.
Trudi Deakin answered a question about Veganism potentially reversing Type 2; she stated there is no evidence Veganism is a healthier option and went on detail what is required to theoretically complete the nutritional deficiencies.
I asked for either Zoe or Aseem to consider hosting a register of diabetics who have put their Type 2 into remission with surgery backed prof similar to the Type 1 Grit evidence base, this was appreciated by several in the audience.
Overall the highlights were meeting some of the members, shaking Ivor Cummins hand (what a legend), meeting Trudi, Zoe (and her husband) and discussing with others at the end of the meeting some ideas.
