I have learned over the years to take the advice of medical professionals with a pinch of Lo-Salt.
It was my doctor (at the time) who told me cigars were safe.
It was a surgeon who, in 1971, told me I needed a Colostomy urgently. I refused and following some years treatment with the Salazopyrin I demanded am now fine in that department.
It was my doctor who, when I followed the instructions on the packet of Lo-Salt and consulted my physician, told me he had no idea how it might cause a problem with my high blood pressure meds.
It was my diabetic nurse who thought sucrolose was the same as sucrose and she'd never heard of Splenda!
It was the doctor I saw in 1999 who told me the Plantar Fasciitis that was preventing me from walking any distance was incurable. At the same time he was telling me to walk for 40 minutes a day to help control my blood pressure. After 3 years of agony, my feet were cured by a great Physiotherapist after 8 treatments!
The same doctor told me to ignore the tingling in my fingers and the sudden "butterflies" that 5 years later was diagnosed as Atrial Fibrillation.
The same doctor told me I'd had a silent heart attack. Five years later, it was discovered the ECG had been misinterpreted and I had not had a heart attack after all! Of course, my life insurance has been loaded ever since.
Following my high blood pressure scare in 1999 (230/126) I followed the "healthy eating" advice from the doctors and tried to exercise up to and beyond my pain threshold (heel pain). At the time I weighed 14 Stone. Over the following ten years I ballooned to 17 stone 8 pounds! In 2009 I was found to be diabetic and told to follow the diet I was already on!
I started to investigate and found this forum. I was impressed that people had found success low carbing so read up on it. I now have various books and have taken advice from members here.
As of today, my fasting glucose was at it's lowest: 5.4. My weight is now 15 stone 1 pound.
Previous posts from myself and my wife may reveal a shaky start to low carbing, but it soon settled down and we are both delighted with the results.
I feel fitter than I have for 20 years, I march up hills at a pace my two Greyhounds protest at!
Oh, by the way, my blood pressure has settled to around 131/79.
Experts? Doctors? Dieticians? I'm sure they all try to act and offer advice with the best of intentions. You cannot expect them to keep up with the constant bombardment of facts and sales patter and still practice medicine. Whatever pay they receive and however dedicated they are, there's still only 24 hours in a day. Besides which, they have to rely on the veracity of the information they receive.
Lastly, there's no doubt heart surgeons are able to perform miracles on faulty hearts. Just because they can fix them, it does not, in my opinion, automatically follow that they know for sure what caused the problem. A car mechanic fixes cars, but he can't advise you on the best make of oil or fuel on the market! OK. that's a fairly lightweight analogy, but it conveys the point - experts may be great in their field but to a large extent their advice can be suspect if it moves outside the immediate boundaries of their field.
Even more lastly! I made the original comment about the tubby dietician, Ken was just following up on that. The comment was not aimed at anyone on this forum, but was merely noting the absurdity that someone who was overweight was content to give dietary advice that she claimed was healthy and worked for her.
Ray
