Revenge is being exacted from Noakes for causing reputational damage to food firms, says Rob Worthington-Smith.
Cape Town - For the second time this year, Professor Tim Noakes has been denied justice and closure relating to the charge brought against him by the Health Professions Council of South Africa (HPCSA) that he apparently had acted in a manner not in accordance with the norms and standards of the profession by “providing unconventional advice on breast feeding babies”.
This advice, given in a tweet nearly two years ago, was that a baby should be weaned onto a low-carb, healthy fat (LCHF) diet.
While the eventual findings of the hearing will not record the flavour of the proceedings, it was clear to all of us in the gallery that the HPCSA was unprepared, disorganised and lacking the necessary competence to conduct the prosecution against Professor Noakes.
Witnesses for the prosecution had not read the ‘discovered’ evidence and pertinent documents had not been presented to the defence team. The advocate arguing the case on behalf of the complainant repeatedly lost his files and lacked both the technical and legal knowledge required to probe his own witnesses.
While seven days had been set aside for the hearing, the complainant team was not even able to complete its own case on time. Incompetence was not confined to the legal team. Its chief witness, Professor Este Vorster, upon whose report the HPCSA’s case was built, contradicted herself so thoroughly that many days of agony could well have been saved by the case being thrown out on those grounds alone.
At least two aspects of Vorster’s testimony were troubling. Firstly, she saw fit to pronounce on the ethics of the doctor-patient relationship over the Twitter medium, despite not understanding social media, nor even having a Twitter account herself.
Secondly, her own guidelines for six- to 12-month-old babies omits the inclusion of carbohydrate-based foods in the diet (this component only appears in the guidelines from 12 months onwards), thus inadvertently agreeing with Noakes.
When cross-examined, she contradicted her earlier argument that the public might take Noakes’ tweet literally, by asserting that mothers of six-month old babies were supposed to assume from her guidelines that so-called traditional staples of porridge should form part of the baby’s diet, despite not being included in the guidelines.
Ironically, the complainant’s gross incompetence played into the hands of the HPCSA, for the Christmas season will come and go, as will the two-year anniversary of the original complaint, with Noakes still suffering from the stress and anxiety of these allegations.
The South African public is not to know, neither is the medical industry, that this case can never be won by the HPCSA. Instead, a measure of revenge is being exacted from Noakes for causing reputational damage to traditional food companies, dietetics, doctors and the pharmaceutical industry – the result of his crusade to revolutionise the nation’s diet.
Why can this case not be won? It is not within the scope of this letter to set out the case for the LCHF diet. What will emerge – once Noakes takes the stand – is the overwhelming evidence against carbohydrates as a necessary component of the human diet.
More and more highly regarded reviews of traditional studies for low-fat, high-carb diets are showing just how flawed was this science. The suggestion that fat finds its way into our arteries has been so thoroughly discredited that it would be hard to find any academic text book anywhere that even attempts to explain its biochemical pathways. Yet amazingly, this remains the foundation for the warnings against taking in energy in the form of animal fat – Noakes’ so-called unconventional advice.
On the other hand, there is an awakening among more progressive medical practitioners of the role of carbohydrates as a driver of insulin production, in turn further stimulating the appetite to snack on more carbs. The more carbohydrates we consume, the more insulin is required to maintain safe glucose levels.
But the more insulin is required, the less effective it becomes, leading to a downward spiral of increasing insulin resistance and the chronic disease of diabetes mellitus, or Type 2 diabetes.
It is estimated that a third of adult South Africans either have, or are on the threshold of contracting diabetes, while another third are well on their way towards this condition. This represents a tenfold increase in a generation. Clearly, something is wrong with traditional dietary advice.
Finally, we are also finding out how important the metabolic products of saturated fats are for the body and its functions, in particular to prevent the metabolic syndrome (an inflammatory condition in which the body attempts to fight oxidative and other byproducts of an upset metabolism) and related diseases that include heart disease, cancer, dementia, depression and arthritis.
This article is the first to admit that some of these conditions have not been clearly proved by means of long-term cohort studies, randomised control trials and the level of peer review expected of science-driven interrogation of new hypotheses.
However, we are at the point in the movie where Christopher Columbus compares a disappearing ship with an orange he rotates in his hand. He makes the connection that the earth is not flat, but must be as round. The medical profession is like the 16th century church. By then it knew very well that the earth was round and orbited around the sun. Yet it was forced by its own dogma, despite clear evidence to the contrary, to persecute enlightened scientists like Galileo.
Noakes is our modern Galileo. Not the first to discover the science behind LCHF, but foremost among those bold and brave enough to question conventional wisdom and campaign to reverse the dietary induced health disaster unfolding before our very eyes.
Noakes is one of South Africa’s few thought-leaders. Surely, amid the intellectual poverty that pervades our state-run institutions, we should be raising the level of debate with these pioneers, both to interrogate their hypotheses, as well as to push them to new heights of achievement. Sadly, the HPCSA hearing has not delivered on this opportunity.
Before the reader makes his/her new year resolutions, I recommend some reading. I would reveal bias if I pointed towards the reading list to be found on the Noakes Foundation website. No, simply turn to Google and follow links to articles reporting on evidence-based scientific studies. Carbs versus fat is one of the most fascinating and important journeys of enquiry you will ever embark upon. Lives are at stake, maybe even yours.
Cape Times
* Worthington-Smith has an honours degree in Agricultural Economics and is a commentator on issues affecting business and society
** The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of Independent Newspapers.