Lies my Doctor Told Me-Medical Myths that can harm your Health by Ken D. Berry,MD is a fascinating book that points out many medical myths not only perpetuated by the public, but by physicians as well. These are commonly believed medical "truths" that have been either disproved or questioned to the point of basically being disproved by modern research, yet med-schools and doctors continue to believe in them and pass them along. So many things we have been told about diet, exercise, medication and self care have been taken back, often silently even by the CDC, FDA, or the USDA but they are not widely publicized and or the modern science has not made it into clinical practice yet.
Dr. Ken Berry is a family physician, who like many Americans was overweight, unhealthy and on the brink of becoming diabetic, though he followed the general dietary guidelines that the food and medical associations across America recommended. Low fat, high carbs, just restrict calories and exercise and you will loose weight. At some point he began to question this wisdom and began to review the research being done on nutrition and diet as well as many other things relevant to his role as a physician. What he found is that many physicians do not stay informed on modern research, and when they do take the time to look at a study, they typically only read the summary. Taking the time to start reading through entire studies he found that the summery does not always agree with what the results of the study points out, and appears to be influenced by the bias of the person who wrote it, and sometimes the influence of the industry funding the study. In addition he points out that most studies on nutrition come from epidemiology, and are based on biased assumptions taken from diet surveys, basically the least scientific way to do science.
Here are a few things the chapters of this book address:
Blue Zones are cherry picked assumptions based on bad science
The food pyramid was basically made by the food industry
Fat (healthy fat) is good for you, even in fairly large quantities, its carbs and sugar that are linked to heart disease
Exercise and calorie restriction are not effective ways to lose weight
Milk does not support strong bones and teeth
Salt does not cause high blood pressure
Dr. Berry points out many studies and encourages the public to investigate them themselves. Each chapter is devoted to a particular medical myth and he ends it with one or two book recommendations on the subject. He explains that the role of the physician, as a keeper of occult secrets that no layman can understand, is over and the patient must be proactive in researching their own health from quality sources provided by well conducted scientific studies, or read material from credible people who can explain the results in plain language. He also spends some time at the end of the book addressing his fellow physicians, experienced and new, explaining the importance of staying informed with current research for the sake of their patients. This book is not only informative and entertaining, it opens up a whole realm of resources that the reader can pursue if interested. I know I will have my reading cut out for me for a while!
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