Found this today: Response to Draft Dietary Guidelines Submitted to the Ministry of Health April 2014 from AUT University. So yes, the Ministry will definitely already be aware of Prof Schofield and Dr Zinn all right. Although to be fair, there has been a change in government since then, but in any case this has me thinking I'm doing the right thing just going it alone here for now.

Thanks for the heads up on the LC mythbusting there Janet. I do have a (still mostly empty) section planned for that, so that will no doubt be of help.

New government and Clark only assumed office end of October. He was openly critical of the previous health minister but has no medical or health administration background himself (in PR speak, a circuitous route to his new job ) http://www.labour.org.nz/davidclark still finding his way in the new job and open to any fresh new ideas from interested citizens who have reached out to him.

A few related points. One, if somebody is enthusiastic about a plan, they're more likely to follow it. Why shouldn't a health care professional help somebody in the approach that they actually prefer? With public healthcare, I do believe the responsibility to take care of ourselves is still our own.

If a vegan goes into a doctor's office and puts their foot down, a good doctor, whatever they think of veganism, should point out things that will make that diet healthier. Vegan potato chips still suck. B12 is still a vitamin. The doctor doesn't have the right to say they can't be vegan, a good doctor will try to help them to be a healthy vegan. The same should be true of other approaches like low carb or a ketogenic diet, people are going to do these diets with or without their doctor, will they be better off with a doctor who tries to guide them in that choice, or with a doctor who says my way or the highway?

Good point teaser, and I address this by referencing two different passages in the NZ Dietitians Board's policies/codes of conduct, one of which states "be a lifelong learner, always improving standards of practice" etc, while the other says "base your advice on the official guidelines", pointing out how these two statements may not necessarily align. Then I move on to a discussion of what happens when health professionals choose the former ideal over the latter, which leads to stories of the likes of Gary Fettke, Tim Noakes and so on.

A couple of questions I'd like to throw out there at this point:

One of the later sections in my proposal looks at existing public awareness and support for LCHF. I think I have this part reasonably well covered for now, but there is one angle I'd like to develop further if I can. I think I remember Dr Westman mentioning once or twice in a couple of his Diet Doctor videos that he has a 6 month waiting list at his clinic, but I can't find any written references to that statement that I can cite? Also, are there any other written examples of LCHF practitioners out there with similarly high demands for their time?

Edit: never mind, I've just found it in a written transcript of one of his presentations from 2016. Still, any other examples would also be appreciated.

Secondly, my proposal title is becoming ever more unwieldly by the day, lol. Currently it reads "A case for official recognition of low-carbohydrate diets as a safe, effective and sustainable option for management and treatment of chronic metabolic disease in New Zealand", which I really like but it's just a bit too long. At this point I'm thinking all I can really do with it is make it the subtitle and preface it with something short and snappy. Or do we think short and snappy would just come across as less professional and I should just leave the above as it is?

"high demand" is hard to quantify...Dr Westman is the only MD in his LCHF clinic, and he also spends time as a researcher and med school professor, plus one day a week at Heal Clinic, plus travel. Somewhat a function of how he and Duke decide what he does and when...maybe only 1/2 a week there? Other doctors who were in high demand have left private practice to use new technology, Dr Davis has his "Undoctored' inner circle group plus webinars. Dr Perlmutter shares high quality podcast interviews. Dr Hallberg works with Virta Health staff...don’t know how she spilts her time between her original IN clinic, Virta, the on-going clinical study, the Purdue U client. Dr Eenfeldt left practice to start an information media company. Getting Diet information is not just visiting a health center doctor and picking up a brochure anymore. Public awareness and support for LCHF has been mostly grass-roots.

It does need a snappier title...but I haven’t had enough coffee yet

Check out the new twist in Gary Fettke's case. More crazy knowing the Australian CSIRO has already established the safety and recommendation for a low carb diet.

How about the following:

Evolving Our Nutritional Awareness
"A case for official recognition of low-carbohydrate diets as a safe, effective and sustainable option for management and treatment of chronic metabolic disease in New Zealand"

I like, Rob!

I like that too Rob, but I think I'd tweak it slightly from "awareness" to "understanding". I think a lot of people already have an awareness of LCHF, but lack an understanding of its viability. Not their fault of course, but the fault of the guidelines that people get their current understanding from, which in turn is why I'm doing what I'm doing.

So I think unless I come up with anything better between now and presentation day, I'll go with Evolving Our Nutritional Understanding for the time being.

Thanks mate.

Grav - Just wondering. Do you have any particular expectations for this meeting? One thing I have learned along the way is to give without any expectation of reward, which is to say that all that I control is my own behavior, what I say and do. I have no control over how people respond. So my advice - Go to this meeting. Give him your best info and be satisfied that you gave it your best shot. Who knows, your meeting might just be a tipping point for him, but probably not and that's Ok. It's still a worthwhile endeavor.

Jean

My 2 cents, which is actually borrowed from something Teaser said in a post not long ago, but I couldn't find again to reference it here. To paraphrase what he said...

If your angle is that the food pyramid/carb based low fat diet recommendations of the past 50 years are all wrong and making us sick, proposing that LCHF is the answer for all, then opponents from all sides will pounce - pointing out all the healthy people who eat that government sanctioned diet who are perfectly healthy. But if your angle is that LCHF has been shown to be a safe, effective and sustainable treatment of metabolic conditions including obesity, hypertension, CVD, diabetes, etc. and you can reference the studies and anecdotes (such as your own) to back that up, then the opposition has much less wiggle room to attack.

My personal belief is that if our grass-roots movement has a chance of getting something done sooner rather than later, then it is going to happen where the sickest among us are involved. If we can get LCHF to become the dominant dietary advice for diabetics, prediabetics, and the obese, then the dramatic, undeniable results, including health care cost savings, will make others stand up and take notice. Had I done nothing about my situation 4 years ago I would certainly be a burden on the healthcare system by this point. But as it turned out this WOE reversed all of my metabolic issues within a year except obesity. The obesity thing took a little over 2 years.

Worry not, Jean. This from my journal:


I still have no expectations as far as this project is concerned. I completely accept the very real likelihood of hitting a snag somewhere and things just coming to a halt and eventually falling away. For a while it looked like I'd hit that snag in just trying to make contact with someone. But I'm past that now, so it's on to the next one. Assuming I do hit a wall at some point, that's fine. At least I tried, and at least I'll know how far I was able to get by doing so.

Until I know this, it's still a worthwhile endeavour as you say, no matter what happens. I just want to try.

I totally agree Ken, and that's why I'm not actually going to be advocating for a complete replacement of the existing guidelines.

In New Zealand, I've learned that not only do we have standard guidelines for adults, but we also have guidelines targeted at specific groups including infants and toddlers, children and young people, pregnant and breastfeeding women and older people. Given that such targeted guidelines already exist, my primary recommendation is going to be that we create an additional set of guidelines for another specific set of people: those with chronic metabolic disease; the fat and the sick. This way, nobody for whom the existing guidelines appear to work already need be concerned, while a new option becomes available for the very group of people who need help the most.

The Public Health Collaboration in the UK takes a similar approach as well, with split plans for maintaining health, and another for gaining health/weight loss.

Basically, I'll be arguing against the singular nature of the status quo more than the status quo itself. Sorry for not making this point clear any earlier, I'm just mindful of too many spoilers.

Keto an Option for Diabetes....the Cleveland Clinic (highly respected in US, located Ohio, FL.) uses the Ketogenic Diet. Short answer from the Registered Dietitian at their Diabetes Center.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/...-with-diabetes/

Cleveland Clinic is known most for heart disease, but also has Dr Mark Hyman in their Integrative Medicine unit.

That is a great angle.

Update: things are getting pretty serious now, up to 40 pages and over 120 references at last count. Writing is probably about 80% done, though some parts could probably stand to be edited down a little bit and others still need fleshing out. I imagine the final result will be around this long, and possibly up to 150 or so references by the time I've checked everything over from end to end.

One area I'm still having a bit of trouble with are some real world examples of economic benefit from LCHF. I have Dr David Unwin's example from England where his clinic spends £45,000 per year less than the average for his area on diabetes medication. Are there any similar sorts of examples out there for anywhere else, particularly the States? I haven't had any luck finding any others so far myself.

The time for the meeting itself has had to be changed, but it has been re-confirmed to be going ahead. I wonder if I should be feeling nervous, but I think I'm still too busy to have time to feel nervous just yet...!