I like Dr. Weil. I think he’s a nice guy and a thoughtful individual. He is obviously a very intelligent person with many respectable accomplishments throughout his storied career.
But, have I ever listened to him for nutritional advice?
No way, no how, not ever.
Here’s why.
Just like other conventional sources of health information, the deal is always changing. How can a person ever truly follow a healthy lifestyle if the dietary recommendations are in constant flux?
Case in point: Dr. Weil recently announced on his website that he is no longer recommending low-fat dairy products.
For those of you who are still buying skim milk and lowfat yogurt based on his adamant advice for many years thinking this was going to help shrink that backside and save you from heart disease, this may come as quite a shock.
21 Studies: Saturated Fat Does Not Cause Heart Disease
Dr. Weil’s reasoning as to why his “thinking on saturated fat has evolved” is based on a thorough analysis of 21 studies which showed that saturated fat is not associated with an increased risk of heart disease.
These 21 studies in total included nearly 350,000 people the majority of whom were healthy at the start of each study. These folks were followed for between 5 and 23 years and over this span of time, 11,000 developed heart disease or had a stroke.
Researchers examining the dietary intake for these thousands of participants found no difference in the risk of “coronary heart disease, stroke, or coronary vascular disease between those individuals with the lowest and highest intake of saturated fat.”
Here’s the kicker.
An apparently dumbfounded Dr. Weil writes that these findings go “completely against the conventional medical wisdom of the past 40 years. It now appears that many studies used to support the low-fat recommendation had serious flaws.”
Why Are You Still Listening To Conventional Health Advice?
My hat is off to Dr. Weil for coming to his senses, but the fact is that he should have recognized this crucial error long ago!
The clear cut data that saturated fat intake has absolutely zero to do with heart disease and other vascular ailments has been around for decades ever since Dr. Mary Enig, former Vice President of the Weston A. Price Foundation and currently Board Member Emeritus, blew the whistle on the scam ages ago and paid for her forthrightness and courage by having her research career blackballed.
What took you so long Andrew?? This is no minor “oops” on your part after all.
Dr. Weil’s 180 on saturated fat begs the obvious question.
What other nutritional errors are still being promoted by Dr. Weil and others like him from “respected and credible” outlets for health advice?
The answer is that there is a lot these TV talking heads promote that is way off the mark.
Having a medical or nutrition degree is no guarantee that the advice given is correct, not by a long shot.
How to Eat Healthy For the Long Term
Does Dr. Weil finally have it right about saturated fat?
Nope.
While his thinking on saturated fat has clearly “evolved” and he is now promoting full fat dairy, he is still off the reservation unfortunately.
For example, Dr. Weil still recommends skinless chicken and turkey and limiting saturated fat intake to 10% of daily calories in the diet. On what basis is he recommending no more than 10% of calories from saturated fat?
There is no basis for this recommendation! It is being pulled completely out of thin air! There is not a single shred of evidence that this recommendation is wise.
How do you know how much saturated fat you should be eating then?
How about looking to the past for your wisdom instead of an ever changing tide of conventional health opinion?
Dead people don’t seek profits or try to influence your buying habits, do they?
Dead people also don’t lie. You can simply examine what they did, see what the results were and objectively assess whether or not their methods were successful.
For these reasons, seeking the wisdom of Traditional Cultures who ate saturated fat with abandon and emphasized them in the diet is the simplest and best approach to health.
If you are tired of changing health advice and your head is spinning from the myriad approaches to eating that are promoted nowadays, I encourage you to take a look at the research of Dr. Weston A. Price, author of Nutrition and Physical Degeneration, a book that is virtually guaranteed to forever change the way you view health and wellness.
Dr. Price traveled the world in the early 1900’s and documented the vibrant health of 14 preindustrialized cultures. What these cultures emphasized for health is very different from what Dr. Weil promotes, sincere though he is in his quest to determine what diet bestows optimal health.
If the concept of Traditional Diets is new to you, click here for a short video introduction.
Isn’t it high time to stop changing the way you eat every few months or years and follow the anthropological path to diet and health that has already been trodden by cultures who fully experienced the vitality you seek?
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Ding dong doctors.
I have known many people who have looked to Dr. Oz, Dr. Weil and others only to be so confused by their flip-flopping theories. I agree that at least Dr. Weil is realizing the mistake of low fat dairy and that’s a start. Good article.
Is Dr Weil overwight himself?
I am grateful and excited that the sails have been trimmed, just a little more, towards the healthier direction. And that Dr. Weil was wiling to admit it to his readers.
Great article! I hope Dr. Weil reads this!
Lions and tigers and bears, OH MY! Could a MOM actually have something to say to a high and mighty MD making millions from an enamored public hanging on his every word?
I say YES. Mothers – listen to that Mother’s intuition when it comes to feeding your children. I have ignored this instinct to my dismay on a few occasions and no longer EVER ignore it.
And what took you so long Sarah to post this? 😉 I saw this months ago on his website and passed it along to our WAPF chapter leader with a few giggles to go with it. Not laughing at you Dr. Weil, just with you! We’ve all been suckered in over the years with the latest “this,” the latest “that” and that is how I ended up at WAPF. I just got so tired of the latest “finding,” and “diet,” and wanted to just go back to eating real food. Thanks for posting this at last! XXOO!
Ha, ha. Good point. It’s not like I hang on what he says or follow the TV shows he appears on! He just put this on his website earlier this month … a reader sent it to me!! Thank you Jane 🙂
I saw it on his website in 2011, probably in the fall.
Look in his books and on his website…he says that if you do not drink flouridated water you should get a prescription from your dentist for flouride pills!!!! Espsecially for your kids!! I think he should stick to selling pots, pans, and shoes.
How scary is that? You gotta wonder WHY they are giving this advice because these people certainly aren’t stupid. I have dark thoughts on this……
I see this as a good thing. Sure they may have a ways to go, but at least they are humble enough to publicly reverse their stand after considering the evidence. Good on them! (Which of us is “right” from the very start and never make mistakes anyway?) I see this as a plus for all of us on the same side.
It is still dangerous to listen to anything these so called experts promote because if they were truly on the ball, they would have recognized that saturated fats were healthy ages ago. This is not new info – they just chose to ignore it as it was good for their careers. It is only when the gun is pointed at their heads and the idiocy of what they are spouting becomes more widely recognized by the mainstream public that they finally admit their error.
Yes…it can be dangerous to put any faith in the ever changing nutritional advice from conventional sources. However, I’m with Cee. Let’s be grateful for their conversion, however slow these initial baby steps are. Praise every step, and keep on teaching, teaching, teaching!
Cee, NancyO
That’s a pretty generous attitude considering the amount of human suffering that has and is still occurring behind these long-held erroneous ideas. But, since we can protect our families by taking heed of the spirit of this post and be grateful that some measure of accurrate information eventually comes to light as neither is mutually exclusive.
There’s a middle ground here.
We can be happy they got it and support that, but still say that we’re not going to look to them for advice. Each of these doctors is only a single human and no single human should be relied upon as “the” source of information. Particularly not one who might be influenced by money and sponsors.
So, yay for Dr. Weil for catching on and now making a healthier recommendation. But this does not mean he is overall trustworthy. All recommendations should still be individually evaluated.
Glad you agree, I also hope we are also as generous with others that are following conventional thought and are then dealing with obesity and all manners of ill-health and ill-behaior.
So true.
The difference is that people like Weil make a fortune selling their snake-oil advice and average people like you and me do not. Case in point: how many people have medical centers named after them? (Weil Cornell Medical Center) I bet he changed his mind for monetary gains.
I believe Weill Cornell Medical College is named after Sanford I. Weill, a Cornell alumni and philanthropist who donated millions of dollars to the medical college.
Also, Dr. Oz used to be totally against saturated fat. Now, he has changed his mind, recommending coconut oil. They are always changing their minds, and it makes them look as though they don’t really know what they’re talking about. Of course, they received a very archaic education on nutrition, I still would not want to get nutrition advice from them.
Coconut oil is a MCT, you can’t classify it the same as animal fat which is almost exclusively SCT’s. You need a balance in my opinion, all have their benefits.
Great article, Sarah. I agree wholeheartedly and am wondering when the time will come when conventional nutrition finally catches up to us! 🙂
Conventional health advice will never “catch up” with us who are in the know about Traditional Diets as the motivations are money, profits and influencing consumer buying habits, not health. Our motivations are simply health and vitality, nothing more.
This is so funny because he was on Dr. Oz awhile ago and I remember thinking he had the right idea about some stuff but not everything. I wish you or someone from the WAPF would end up on Dr. Oz one day!! I cant say The Doctors show because they would never go away from being mainstream!
Read Dr. Price’s Nutrition & Physical Degeneration online for free here: http://goo.gl/Jz3s6
Wow, thank you for the book link! Now I can show send people the direct link instead of the summaries.