A California doctor wants people to know that, in his view and in his experience, the medical community doesn’t always tell patients the truth.
Dr. Robert Lufkin, a physician and father of two young children, was diagnosed with four chronic illnesses, the same ones that took his father’s life.
Inspired by his own medical struggles, Lufkin decided to write a book exposing what he calls “medical lies” that contribute to chronic disease risk in the United States – some of which he says he taught himself. them as a professor at UCLA and USC.
Although Lufkin is critical of the medical establishment, he emphasizes that he himself is still part of it.
“I have written hundreds of peer-reviewed articles and 10 textbooks, and I also have the honor and privilege of teaching physicians and other healthcare professionals, as well as seeing patients ” Lufkin told Fox News Digital in an interview.
His own diagnoses, Lufkin said, “woke him up” to the flaws in the medical system.
First, he developed a type of arthritis called gout.
“Then I developed hypertension, which almost half of adults have,” he said.
“If we don’t address the metabolic cause…diseases will only get worse.” »
Then came pre-diabetes, followed by dyslipidemia – “which is a type of abnormal blood lipids.”
The doctor noted that he is actually a “big fan” of Western medicine in general – “I think it has transformed our lives and made the world a better place,” he said – but that In the 21st century, a “new class of diseases” posed a challenge.
“Diseases were there before, but now they are exploding,” he said.
These include obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer’s disease and even mental illness, Lufkin said.
“Up to 80% of our resources are now dedicated to these chronic diseases. »
The problem, the doctor said, is that the tools that were so effective in the 20th century – “pills and surgeries” – could save lives in the moment.
But they only address the symptoms of these chronic illnesses, not their root causes.
“There is a common metabolic cause underlying most of these diseases,” Lufkin said.
“And unless we address the metabolic cause, pills and surgeries won’t do it. Diseases will only get worse.
“The 10 lies”
In his book, “The Lies I Taught in Medical School,” Lufkin claims that medical professionals tend to spread 10 falsehoods.
He listed these situations and included separate chapters on them in his book, entitled:
1. The Metabolic Lie: “Metabolism is just the way the body digests food”
2. The Obesity Lie: “To lose weight, you just need to exercise more and eat less”
3. The lie about diabetes: “Sugar is harmless except for causing weight gain and tooth decay”
4. The lie about fatty liver disease: “There is no treatment for non-alcoholic fatty liver disease”
5. The Hypertension Lie: “The best treatment for high blood pressure is medication”
6. The heart disease lie: “Statins are a good choice for preventing heart disease”
7. The Cancer Lie: “Most cancers are caused by accumulated DNA damage”
8. The Alzheimer’s Lie: “Alzheimer’s is a progressive, incurable disease caused by the accumulation of beta-amyloid.”
9. The mental health lie: “Metabolism has little effect on mental health”
10. The Longevity Lie: “Aging is the inevitable result of accumulated wear and tear.”
“In each chapter,” Lufkin said, “we go through each of these chronic illnesses that determine how long we live — and we talk about what the lies are and what the truth is.”
The doctor then presents a plan for making healthier lifestyle choices.
“We talk about nutrition, sleep, exercise, stress and how we can shape our own lifestyles to reverse these diseases,” he said.
In the excerpt below, Lufkin explains the first two of these “lies.”
Read an excerpt from “The Lies I Taught in Medical School”
The Obesity Lie: “A calorie is just a calorie”
Dr. Robert Lufkin: We are currently experiencing the worst global obesity epidemic in history. Statistics show that 42.5% of adults aged 20 and over are obese and 73.6% are at least overweight.
Nearly half of Americans are obese and most are overweight. Obesity is unhealthy and a marker of metabolic dysfunction, which manifests as hypertension, diabetes, heart attacks, stroke, Alzheimer’s disease, cancer and other chronic diseases.
“Today we are experiencing the worst global obesity epidemic in history. »
Our understanding of the causes of this epidemic and approaches to treating it is based on a simple lie: “a calorie is a calorie,” implying that obesity is caused by excessive calorie consumption.
As a doctor, I know from personal experience that I can make anyone gain weight or fat simply by giving them extra insulin. This is seen in type 1 and type 2 diabetics as soon as they start taking more insulin as medication.
In other words, calories are necessary, but not sufficient to lead to obesity. Insulin is necessary. Obesity is not just a problem of calories; It’s an insulin problem.
If all foods stimulated insulin the same way, then a calorie would just be a calorie. It is not a lie. But not all foods trigger insulin the same way.
The truth is that when losing (or gaining) weight, the most important thing is not the number of calories consumed, but rather the type of calories that affect insulin levels and cause our body to store energy under form of fat.
As any rancher knows, to fatten cattle you simply feed them large amounts of refined carbohydrates which will activate insulin and store energy as fat.
Feeding livestock fatty foods will not have the same effect.
The Diabetes Lie: “Sugar is Harmless, Except for Weight Gain and Tooth Decay”
We are at the start of the worst diabetes epidemic the world has ever seen. Ten percent of American adults have type 2 diabetes and about 38% have prediabetes. This means that for the first time in history, 48% – or almost half of the population – suffer from the same metabolic disease!
The Diabetes Lie states that the best way to treat type 2 diabetes is with insulin.
Administering insulin will help control the immediate effects of too much glucose in the blood by instructing our cells to remove this glucose from the blood and store it as fat.
However, it will also increase the body’s overall insulin levels, worsening insulin resistance, the underlying cause of type 2 diabetes. Additionally, high insulin levels lead to other chronic diseases.
“Many people would rather take a pill or injection than change their lifestyle.”
Our healthcare system is unfortunately much more optimized for issuing prescriptions for insulin and other medications to manage type 2 diabetes than for providing instructions on how to reverse it by changing our diet to avoid its causes. .
To be honest, many people would rather take a pill or injection than change their lifestyle. But most people don’t know how powerful and effective lifestyle choices can be.
Additionally, there is some evidence that simply improving blood sugar control with medications, such as insulin or pills, does not prevent some of the long-term complications these patients experience. all confronted.
There are also financial incentives. In 2013, sales of insulin and other diabetes medications reached $23 billion, according to data from IMS Health, a drug market research company.
This was more than the combined revenues of the National Football League, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association.