Do we need a Dr. John Snow?

hanadr

Expert
Messages
8,157
Dislikes
soaps on telly and people talking about the characters as if they were real.
I noticed a room named after him at BMA house. For those that don't know, he proved that cholera is water borne and not caused by a miasma. He halted a cholera outbreak in Soho in the 18th? century by the simple means of removing the handle of the water pump (the Broad Street pump) near the geographic centre of the outbreak. Local brewery workers didn't get the cholera and a former resident of the area, who collected drinking water from there even after moving away died.
He was pretty much the first British doctor to apply scientific method the investigating disease.
I was listening to Radio 4 this morning and heard a discussion on whether Florence Nightingale knew Germ theory. A new biography has come out which says she did. and Hugh Pennington!!!! says she didn't.
Do we need a John Snow to take up the cause for low carb?
 

Mags52

Member
Messages
12
At my annual diabetic check when my hba1c was 6.4 on diet alone the GP asked me how I did it. I said that I carefully count and limit my carb intake and he said - well done, that's the best way to do it.
So there are enlightened GPs out there. Another one in the same practice advised me to try low GI right at the start.
I've been amazed at some of the advice others have been given. I'm in Scotland tho so the guidelines might be a bit different.
Margaret
 

HLW

Well-Known Member
Messages
723
Type of diabetes
Type 1
Treatment type
Insulin
The diabetes nurse at my doctor's surgery also recommended low carb to me, so some do think it's ok.
 

Trinkwasser

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,468
HLW said:
The diabetes nurse at my doctor's surgery also recommended low carb to me, so some do think it's ok.

I've found locally that the nurses seem more able to stick their heads above the parapet and say things that the doctors wouldn't dare (maybe they are less likely to or less bothered about losing their jobs which is a possibility for a doctor who goes against local protocol)
The doctors are far from incompetent and some seem as frustrated as us patients to be limited by accountants and managers with no medical training.

NOT true everywhere . . . some doctors are planks just like some of all professions