Wishing all friends and fans of You must be nuts! a happy, healthy and prosperous 2015.
Talking of a healthy 2015, a couple of days ago, Chris Ham, Chief Executive of the UK-based King’s Fund, identified Three challenges and a big uncertainty for the NHS in 2015:
– preparing for a spending review after the UK General Election in May 2015;
– much closer integration of health and social care;
– ensuring that the NHS has the leadership in place to deliver the highest affordable standards of care; and
– which political parties will form the coalition UK Government after May 2015.
If you have watched the film, you will realise that the challenges (and the health of many in the UK) could be reduced even before the elections by addressing apparent ethical flaws and under-regulation in:
– the dietary advice published by the NHS;
– the treatment guidance given to NHS doctors (about which senior health professionals have already called for an independent investigation); and
– the allocation of public funding for medical research.
To help with the first of these, here is the list we compiled for the film of NHS web pages which continue to discourage people from eating saturated fat (in spite of the evidence that eating saturated fat has nothing to do with increased heart disease and that a low fat diet could cause dementia):
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/Fat.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/video/pages/fat-the-facts.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/Eat-less-saturated-fat.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/SouthAsianhealth/Pages/Fat.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1124.aspx?categoryid=51
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/Obesity/Pages/Introduction.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2014/03March/Pages/Saturated-fats-and-heart-disease-link-unproven.aspx
Meanwhile, the following NHS web pages are among those which advocate eating more carbohydrates (in spite of the evidence that a high carbohydrate diet increases the risk of dementia, diabetes, heart disease, obesity and cancer):
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/starchy-foods.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/healthy-pregnancy-diet.aspx#close
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/eight-tips-healthy-eating.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/livewell/loseweight/pages/the-truth-about-carbs.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/Healthyeating.aspx
http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Goodfood/Pages/eatwell-plate.aspx
https://www.healthystart.nhs.uk/food-and-health-tips/healthy-eating-in-pregnancy/
If you know of other official UK websites offering similar dietary advice, please post them in the comments below so that we can add them to these lists.
You are welcome to use the lists, for example, to encourage the UK Health Secretary to take these pages offline for revision in line with the latest scientific research, as most of those commenting on the pages had recommended long ago. The 1950s low-fat dogma (and not scientific evidence) on which all of the above NHS web pages are based has been widely discredited.
Yesterday, UK Prime Minister David Cameron fired the starting gun for the General Election. All the major UK political parties are looking for ways to reduce the country’s budget deficit. Fixing the above web pages and the guidance given to doctors could save the NHS billions in drug and healthcare costs while easing the pressure on health professionals.
Could 2015 be the year our health stopped being harmed by the national dietary guidance and the drugs cocktail prescribed routinely to older people?
The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1809)