Joshua Wolrich - Food Isnt Medicine

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First published by Vermilion in 2021

Copyright Dr Joshua Wolrich 2021
Illustrations Joel Stewart 2021

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Design Luke Bird
Image Amishka/Yellow Images

ISBN: 978-1-473-58401-3

This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorized distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the authors and publishers rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

The information in this book has been compiled as general guidance on the specific subjects addressed. It is not a substitute and not to be relied on for medical, healthcare or pharmaceutical professional advice. Please consult your GP before changing, stopping or starting any medical treatment. So far as the author is aware the information given is correct and up to date as at February 2021. Practice, laws and regulations all change and the reader should obtain up to date professional advice on any such issues. The author and publishers disclaim, as far as the law allows, any liability arising directly or indirectly from the use or misuse of the information contained in this book.

For those experiencing weight stigma:
please know you deserve so much better and
I promise not to stop until you get it.

You are completely entitled to opinions that are not supported by evidence, but the moment you spread that opinion as fact, you are a liar, and if you spread it as fact knowing that its not supported by evidence, you are both a liar and a fraud.

OCCAMS BARBER

On the 16th of August 2020, Justin Bieber and I became friends.

Okay fine, he publicly told me to fuck off for challenging him in front of his then 144 million Instagram followers, but thats basically the same thing, right? Friend, acquaintance, mortal enemy whats the difference?!

Ill explain how that all came about in a second, but first let me introduce myself. Im an NHS junior doctor currently in the middle of a postgraduate masters degree in nutrition. Ive grown increasingly frustrated over the last few years seeing how some medical doctors have become bolder in believing that they understand nutritional science. Lets be clear right out of the gate; the scientific study of the relationship between diet and health is not the same discipline that we get taught in medical school, otherwise my current academic study would be a waste of money. Doctors are first and foremost biomedical scientists, meaning that we focus on learning how the human body functions in order to understand and treat disease. Theres less overlap with nutrition than you might immediately think and an ignorance of the fundamental differences between the two disciplines has resulted in a truly terrible slew of books being written and published by doctors way out of their lane.

Of the top 100 bestselling books on nutrition in 2018, guess which profession made up the biggest percentage of authorship? You are four times more likely to pick up a nutrition book written by a doctor than you would by a dietitian or nutritionist. If this were the other way around and medical books were being overwhelmingly written by people without a medical degree, I can guarantee you that doctors would be up in arms.

Not only that, but the nutritional advice found in these books varies widely and is often completely contradictory. Eat carbs, dont eat carbs; eat fat, dont eat fat; go vegan, or is it carnivore?! They promise weight loss and disease cures. Weve reached a point now where both traditional and social media are awash with so much nonsense that its almost impossible for anyone to figure out whats actually true. Oh and dont get me started on books that claim to explain why everything weve been told about food it wrong. Burn them all.

Nutritional science actually knows an incredible amount about food and its impact on our health, but facts like eat more veg arent exactly sexy, are they? Its much more exciting for someone to claim theyre challenging the status quo and dogmatically promise a new solution to health and weight loss, even though those two categorically arent even the same thing. Well get to that.

In my humble opinion there is one simple truth that I believe would solve a lot of the difficulty sifting through the misinformation when it comes to nutrition: food isnt medicine.

The vast majority of nutrition books rely on the opposite being true, despite the fact that youd be hard-pressed to find anyone with formal training in dietetics or nutrition who uses the phrase. That alone should really tell you something.

The fact that food isnt medicine is not a bad thing by any means; its actually a really good thing that its not! Our health is too often sold as something we have complete control over, and treating food as medicine only serves to encourage this rhetoric of personal responsibility. We need to stop shaming people for what they eat and implying that an illness was their fault for not making better choices.

Recognising that food isnt medicine doesnt mean I dont believe food can have a positive impact on someones health this isnt an either/or situation! Not only can the way we live our lives have a big impact on chronic disease, but helping people come off medication they believed to be lifelong is a wonderful aim. Ironically, accepting the differences between food and medicine leads to this pursuit becoming more realistic and attainable.

Hang on a second, didnt Hippocrates, the so-called father of Western medicine, say to let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food? Sorry to burst a bubble right at the beginning of this book but Hippocrates never actually combined the two; this is simply a nice-sounding misquote but no one is quoting him on that one, are they?

This obsession with wanting food to be medicine has resulted in increasing numbers of doctors playing identity politics with their dietary choices. Their social media handles now include phrases like low-carb or carnivore as a badge of honour. When diet infiltrates someones identity it can all too often lead to bias and closed-mindedness. When shown evidence that puts this new part of who they are into question, do you really think theyre going to take the time to genuinely explore it? We are all perfectly entitled to choose to eat a certain way, but as doctors we have to keep this from being projected onto patients during a consultation.