Cape Town - Professor Tim Noakes has called for diabetes and insulin resistance to get a similar attention that the county has given to HIV/Aids, arguing these two medical conditions needed to be reversed as they were 'getting out of control'.
“If we did for HIV why can't we do it for diabetes? We brought HIV under control let's do the same for diabetes,“ he said.
In the Western Cape about 300 000 people lived with diabetes. Noakes said this number could be much more with many people predisposed to diabetes as they had insulin resistance, but were not aware.
He said diabetes was often tested too late, but this could br picked up much earlier has doctors tested for insulin resistance instead.
Noakes was giving chief evidence in his disciplinary hearing by the Health Professions Council of SA (HPCSA).
The council has charged the banting advocate for unprofessional conduct in that he gave unconventional advice on Twitter.
In 2014, Pippa Leenstra had tweeted Noakes and nutritional therapist Sally-Ann Creed, co-authors of The Real Meal Revolution, about whether it was safe for breastfeeding mothers to be on the low-carb,high-fat (LCHF) Banting diet.
Noakes had replied on Twitter: “Baby doesn’t eat the dairy and cauliflower. Just very healthy high fat breast milk. Key is to ween (sic) baby on to LCHF.”
A past president of the Association for Dietetics in SA, Claire Julsing-Strydom, had lodged a complaint with the HPCSA.
On Friday Noakes questioned the country's dietary guidelines, saying they we responsible for obesity and diabetes as they encouraged the consumption of carbohydrates and influenced by America - a country with a track record of obesity.
“America is the most obese country in the world, why are we taking their advice? It doesn't make sense,” he said.
In a testimony which was scientific intense, Noakes outlined the causes of obesity and their link carbohydrates.
He said a part or the brain known as “appestat” which regulated the balance
between calories in and calories out.
A failure of the apprestat caused obesity. The consumption of food high in carbohydrates was the main driver of this failure and was also responsible for other metabolic disorders such as insulin resistance.
As opposed to the so- called conventional medicine that suggested that saturated fats and cholesterol were responsible for heart disease, Noakes said credible research showed that it was insulin resistance that was responsible for coronary heart disease and the disease of fatty liver, which was responsible for transportation of lipoproteins into arteries.
He also used the platform to present evidence that the LCHF was “not a fad”.
“It has been discounted as a fad diet, it was the original diet. It had stood the test of time and has never gone out of popularity. It was the first medical diet prescribed in 1819. How can we discount it as unorthodox and novel. Its is not... It is the original diet,” he said.
Noakes quoted physician Wilhelm Ebstein, whom he called a “god of medicine”.
In the late 1800s Ebstein also prescribed a high fat, low carb diet.
He too said sugar should be entirely prohibited, and a moderate amount of fats should be consumed.
He also refereed to the book The Physiology of Taste, written in 1820, which found the second principle cause of obesity lies in the starches and flours.
“This diet is not unconventional. It has been made unconventional by people who are not prepared to read the literature,” he said.
In what could be viewed as controversial by the science community, Noakes also questioned the relevance of peer review in science research, saying this was not always a fair route to take for scientists with different ideas from the arthodox.
He said scientists with different views were often vilified by peers who didn't agree with different ideas.
Peer reviews often maintained orthodox.
“Peer review is no excuse not to read books that are not peer reviewed. Off course 50 percent of what they say may be wrong...you just have to find which 50 percent.”
He said editors of science journals who didn't agree with conflicting scientists often sent scientific papers in question to peers that rejected the research.
He said as someone who has diabetes and whose father was killed by diabetes, “it is my responsibility to share this evidence”.
He labelled his hearing is a unique event in the history of modern medicine, saying he would us it to present facts, which his peers that were demonised by the food industry were to scared to stand up for.
He said that he gave unconventional advice because the conventional advice harms patients “That is why I am here, I won't be cowed, I am going to stand up to my profession.”
The hearing will resume on Monday morning.
Weekend Argus