Robert F Kennedy, Jr, the HHS Secretary nominee, has a strong reputation as an anti-vaccine…person. That reputation may or may not be justified; he is skeptical of them. Related to that, his reputation for opposing to GLP-1 drugs also may or may not be justified. However, taking the particular case of those GLP-1 drugs, Kennedy’s actual position is obscured by this bit of journalist editorial foolishness:
[H]e thinks Americans should eat healthier and exercise to lose weight. That’s fine as far as it goes. But neither exercise nor dietary changes will cure diabetes, and hormonal changes make it difficult for severely obese patients to lose weight without medical interventions.
Both diet and exercise are Critical Items for the health of all of us, and particularly so for diabetics. These won’t cure diabetes? I’m aware of no one who claims they do. There is, though, a rapidly growing anecdotal body of evidence that changes in diet—particularly regarding carbohydrate intake in general and grains more specifically—do in fact beneficially alter individuals’ hormonal environment and mitigate, sometimes eliminate, the effects of diabetes. Those especially morbidly obese may well still need drugs, potentially of the GLP-1 variety, after having improved their diet and exercise regimens.
Or reducing/eliminating carbs, including grains, may not have any general population effect. Government bureaucrats with medical degrees need to get out of the way of science and let the research proceed to confirmation or refutation.
Is diabetes curable by diet and exercise? Probably not, but the metabolic health outcomes cannot be ignored by serious medically-oriented scientists. On the other hand, journalist editorial writings, especially when done completely absent any presentation of data supporting editors’ claims, can be ignored. And yes, that includes editors’ skepticism regarding political nominees whose positions might differ from the editors’.
There are thousands of cases of diabetes remission (defined as reducing blood sugars to levels below diabetes diagnostic criteria and sustaining them below same). Virta Health, based in Indiana, has sustained cases of 5+ years. Diabetes patients in the UK have have chosen a low carb, and even keto, approach, following the lead of Dr. David Unwin, whose practice has documented hundreds, if not thousands, of individual cases. For those who wish to go further, a plant-free (“carnivore”) diet seems to offer substantial additional benefits, especially in the area of autoimmune diseases, again, with thousands of individual cases.
The scientific journal industry is slowly catching up; a challenge is funding. Most scientific studies are funded by those who stand to gain financially from a particular outcome. The retired editors of both the BMJ and the NEJM have stated that most published human health studies are untrustworthy.
RFKJ is calling for more and better research, and for acknowledging trend data indicating at least coincident timing of dietary and (less well documented) exercise habit changes and our massive increase in overweight and obesity, and associated disease states.
He may well be oversimplifying in some areas – but strong daylight is needed in this entire arena, untainted by self-interested funding. It would be a good start.