David Gillespie

December 3, 2013

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Correction to Fruit Fix Post

By David Gillespie | Conflicts of Interest, Sugar | 3 Comments

I’m nothing if not responsive to reader requests. Richard Andersen has written to express some concerns about my recent post on Uncle Toby’s Fruit Fix bar. Richard is General Counsel (a lawyer) for Nestle Australia Ltd and he says that Nestle is worried that you might have misunderstood some things in my post. So in the interests of clarity and fairness, in this post, I’ll go through each of Nestle’s concerns and correct the record.

Righto, off we go – Nestle says that I “represent[ed] … that the Fruit Fix Strawberry variant contains only strawberries … The front of pack clearly describes the product as ‘… apple, strawberry and grape snack’, which you have failed to mention in your post.”

Well true enuff Richard, you’ve got me there mate. I didn’t recite the front label of the pack. I just went ahead and referred to the product by the name Uncle Toby’s used to describe it on their site (I didn’t actually buy a packet of the stuff!). So for the record folks, Fruit Fix Strawberry is an apple, strawberry and grape snack. It does not under any circumstances contain just strawberries, so don’t go thinking it does.

Richard then says that Nestle is concerned that comparing the sugar content of a strawberry to a fruit fix is misleading because Fruit Fix also contains apples and grapes. I don’t want anyone being mislead so here is the full comparison (including apples and grapes – SFF is Strawberry Fruit Fix):

Protein: Strawberry 1% Apple 0% Grape 1% SFF 1.3%

Fat: Strawberry 0% Apple 0% Grape 0% SFF .5%

Sugar: Strawberry 4.6% Apple 10.4% Grape 15.5% SFF 72.7%

Fibre: Strawberry 2% Apple 2.4% Grape .9% SFF 7.3%

The highest sugar concentration is 15.5% which is still a long way from 72.7% so I’m not sure what point Nestle is trying to make. Even if Strawberry Fruit Fix contained nothing but grapes, you’d still need to eat almost half a kilo of them to get as much sugar as 100g of Fruit Fix, but there you go, full disclosure.

Next Nestle was concerned that I “… make an inference that additional sugar has been added to the product … The product uses fruit puree and juice, which are inherently high in natural fruit sugars”.Notice how they underlined the word natural, I think it must be a magic word. Lawyers always underline magic lawyer words.

I can’t see where I have suggested that sugar is ‘added’ in the original post. But just in case anyone is confused, I unequivocally state that I don’t think any ‘additional sugar has been added to the product’. There’d be barely any room for anything else if they did, given all the sugar that’s already there.

No, I’m happy to accept Nestle’s word that the sugar in Fruit Fix comes entirely from fruit. Nestle seems to think that a molecule of sugar that was in some way associated with a piece of fruit in a prior life is an entirely different kettle of fish than one which found its genesis in a piece of sugar cane (like grapes, sugar cane is about 15% sugar in its natural state). I think this must be some sort of grass-ism (sugar cane is a grass).Nestle appear to believe that fructose molecules from fruit come from a better neighbourhood than those from grass. Apparently once being part of a piece fruit earns them the special label ‘natural’ as opposed to those (I guess) unnatural ones which were once part of a piece of sugar cane.

Nestle also takes exception to me suggesting that they are telling lies by emblazoning their product with ‘1 Serve of Fruit’ and advertising the product as a healthy and nutritious snack. They point out that unlike me, Nestle have carefully ensured they know the legal definition of the word ‘fruit’.

Silly old me. You see when someone says ‘1 Serve of Fruit’, I think of an apple or maybe a banana. But that’s where I’ve gone wrong according to Nestle. No, what I should be doing is reaching for my handy copy of The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating where I will discover (once I drill down to the fine print) that fruit juice and fruit puree are also considered to fit the definition of ‘fruit’. Since Fruit Fix is made from both of those ingredients, it is therefore ‘fruit’.

So when you define the words just the right way, Nestle is telling God’s honest. Personally I think it would be more honest to emblazon the box with ‘Five to Sixteen equivalent serves of sugars that were once part of a piece of fruit’ but I can see how the Nestle marketing people might not go for that.

Unfortunately Nestle didn’t give me their definition of ‘healthy and nutritious’ so I’ll just have to rely on common sense for that one. I take the phrase to mean the food will promote good health (or at least not bad health). And this is where Nestle and I will have to disagree on the ‘truth’. Nestle maintains that a food which is almost three quarters sugar (and the majority of that, fructose) promotes good health. But there over 3,000 published studies which say exactly the opposite.

The latest one (published just last month in the Journal of Clinical Investigation) reported on a study at the University of California where 32 overweight and obese people were persuaded to try a 10 week diet which was either 25 percent fructose or 25 percent glucose. Fructose and glucose are the two sugars that bind together to make table sugar. So ‘sugar’ is half fructose and half glucose (yes, even when it comes from fruit rather than cane).

The people on the fructose diet ended up with increased (1.5kg) abdominal fat, higher triglyceride levels (which leads to heart disease) and 20 percent higher insulin resistance (which leads to Type II Diabetes) after just 10 weeks! None of this happened to the group on glucose.

The University of California research is just the latest in a long line of studies which say the same thing. Sugar (or at least the fructose half or it) is highly dangerous to humans. And there is no shortage of research which shows that fat in the blood (the higher triglyceride levels) from fructose leads to obesity, heart disease and type II diabetes.

The ‘sugar’ in the Fruit Fix is likely to contain significantly more fructose than table sugar, coming as it does from condensed fruit juices. So Nestle are telling parents that it’s good to feed their kids something which consists of large amount of a substance which has been proven to cause obesity, heart disease and diabetes (to name a few of the problems). That does not fit my definition of ‘healthy and nutritious’, so in that sense I believe Nestle is lying when it says that Fruit Fix is a ‘healthy and nutritious’ alternative to fruit.

I guess to lie you must know that what you’re saying is not true. And I have assumed that Nestle would be aware of the research on fructose. I do sincerely hope that their defence (as one of our biggest food suppliers) is not that they weren’t aware of the dangers of sugar.

It’s a free country. Nestle has just as much right to sell high sugar, fruit flavoured confectionary as the next guy (actually a Mars Bar, for example, has considerably less sugar – ‘just’ 55.3%). What they should not do is tell us that it is a healthy and nutritious snack while they’re at it. And the Heart Foundation shouldn’t be aiding and abetting this deceit by stamping the product with its Tick of approval.

November 30, 2013

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Stop the Statin madness

By David Gillespie | Big Fat Lies | 9 Comments

It’s official. According to an OECD report released last week, Australians now consume more cholesterol lowering drugs per person than any other developed country. Prescribing rates are 40 per cent above the OECD average. Worse than that, we have tripled our consumption in just the last 10 years.

If you know ten people over the age of 50, then you probably know at least three people taking statins. This class of drugs are now the single most profitable drugs ever made. But they are significantly overprescribed and come with devastating side effects. When unnecessary drugs cause measurable harm, the doctors writing the prescriptions need to check their liability insurance.

Statins are drugs used to lower LDL cholesterol. LDL is often described as bad cholesterol and HDL as good cholesterol. This is because studies have shown that people with proportionally higher levels of HDL and lower levels of LDL in their blood are less prone to heart disease. That message has been pounded home by drug companies because their product, statins, only affects LDL cholesterol.

When a doctor says you have a high ‘bad cholesterol’ reading, they’re talking about your LDL cholesterol being outside a target range of 2.6–3.3 mmol/L. If you get too far out of that range – greater than 6.5 mmol/L (at the moment) – out will come the prescription book and there’s a good chance you’ll be prescribed statins.

The drug manufacturers have met with considerable success driving home this message (via your local family doctor). Australians now spend 1,400 per cent more on statins than they did just two decades ago. The drugs now consume one in every eight dollars spent on medicine by our Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).

And while there is no doubt that consumption of statins will reduce your LDL cholesterol there is no evidence that they will have any effect on your likelihood of suffering a fatal heart attack – unless you are a man who has already survived one.

But ‘men who’ve already suffered a heart attack’ (and lived to tell the tale) is a very small market. The only way statin use could grow as rapidly as it has, was to convince doctors to prescribe them as a preventative measure among people whose only apparent sign of ill health is a higher than ‘normal’ blood-cholesterol reading.

Due to progressive widening of the definition of ‘abnormal cholesterol’, worldwide sales of the drugs broke through the US$ 34 billion mark in 2008. And one of the most popular statins, Lipitor is now responsible for one in every four dollars earned by the World’s largest drug company, Pfizer. But even that is not enough. The marketing machine continues to roll on. Just this month, the latest marketing victory (an arbitrary shifting of the definition of normal) has seen the number of potential users of statins in the US expand by up to 70 percent.

Recent comprehensive reviews of all of the major high-quality trials on statins have concluded that for people without known heart disease (who make up around 90% of those being treated) taking statins did not alter the overall risk of dying at all.

The risk of these people suffering a non-fatal heart attack was 1.6 per cent lower, but that’s an extraordinarily small improvement, especially given the overall risk of death was unchanged. It means that 60 otherwise healthy people have to be treated with statins for five years in order to prevent just one of them suffering a non-fatal heart-disease event. This puts the drugs in the category of being almost completely ineffective for such people. By way of comparison, we need to treat 11 people with antibiotics in order to completely cure 10 of them.

When the data are broken down by gender and age, the results became even less impressive. Statins do not reduce total death rates in women at all. And men aged over 70 (those most at risk of fatal heart attacks) enjoyed no benefits either (indeed they may have been harmed). The only people the drug appeared to help were men aged 30–69 who had already suffered a heart attack, and then only by a very small absolute margin.

If there were no side-effects from statin drugs then this would merely mean that we are all the victims of shameless (and shameful) profiteering. But there is now growing evidence of significant harm.

Statin use increases the risk of developing Type II diabetes by an average of 9% (but it could be as high as 50% in some women). One in ten statin users experience muscle damage with up to 75 per cent experiencing some form of muscle pain. And there is emerging evidence that the drugs are linked to memory impairment.

Going back to our hypothetical 60 healthy people being treated for five years (so that one of them avoids a non-fatal heart attack), at least 1.2 will develop diabetes (who would not otherwise), 6 will experience muscle damage, up to 45 will suffer serious muscle pain and there is a reasonable risk some of them will suffer memory loss. Worse than that, these risk calculations largely come from studies sponsored by the drug companies, so it’s safe to assume they represent best case scenarios.

The evidence of harm has become so clear that last year, the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) required manufacturers to include warnings of these risks on the labels and prescribing information datasheets.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what turns profiteering into negligence. Negligence occurs when someone who owes you a duty of care takes action which they could reasonably foresee would be likely to cause you injury. Are the drug company’s negligent? Nup. They are simply providing a medicine which has been approved by our regulators for sale in very limited circumstances.

No, the legal blame will land squarely at the feet of the professionals we rely upon to first do us no harm. Doctors clearly owe patients a duty of care. And in cases where the likelihood of harm exceeds any potential benefit the prospect of a successful claim becomes very real.

Doctors would be well advised to ensure their use of statins is as conservative as the evidence says it should be. In general the evidence says they should only be prescribed for men aged 30–69 who have a history of coronary heart disease – a very small subset of the approximately 1 million Australians currently taking the drugs.

Statins are not harmless placebos. They are powerful medications which significantly reduce our body’s ability to produce two of our primary repair molecules, cholesterol and co-enzyme Q10. They should not be handed out like lollies at the school fete. Patients given an ineffectual drug which causes lifelong harm (in the form of Type II Diabetes) will rightly seek redress from the medical professional who prescribed it.

The growing public awareness of the risks and (lack of) benefits to these drugs will almost certainly result in significant litigation in the not very distant future. If doctors don’t wish to be the fall guy for the billion-dollar drug company pay-day then they need to think very carefully about how many of their statin consumers really should be taking the drugs.

November 28, 2013

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The gig is up

By David Gillespie | Sugar | No Comments

Last month Credit Suisse issued a blunt warning to the processed food industry in general and the beverage industry in particular. The gig is up. Well, they didn’t say that exactly, but there can be no other way to read their pragmatic financial assessment of the state of play in the sugar wars.

The processed food industry has done their best to muddy the waters on the science linking sugar to heart disease, obesity and type II diabetes, but it doesn’t fool the team of 20 financial analysts for one second. You see, financial folks don’t need to worry about the prevailing nutritional dogma or whether they will get the next research grant. All they worry about is money and whether their clients are making enough of the stuff.

They ask if it could possibly be coincidence that Mexico is the third largest consumer of sugary soft-drink and ranked second for obesity. They speculate that maybe, just maybe, the same coincidence could explain Italy at #35 for soft-drink and #25 for obesity. But they are convinced that coincidence can’t be further stretched to explain how in every US State, obesity levels correlate exactly with the total sugar consumed from soft-drink (it varies quite a bit because the denizens of richer states consumer more diet soda and aren’t quite as fat as those which inhabit the poorer states).

Realising that the proving anything in human nutrition is virtually impossible (especially when folks making billions out of sugar are funding a lot of it), the financial wingnuts decide to ask doctors what they think. This is a world first as far as I am aware. They actually asked the doctors treating these diseases at the coal-face what they reckon the cause is. And the results confirm that if sugar’s role in disease is a mere coincidence, it’s got the medicos fooled too.

Eighty Six per cent of EU doctors (and 98% of US doctors) are convinced that sugar makes us fat. Ninety two per cent are convinced it causes Type II diabetes (96% in the US). Four out of five doctors also believe that sugar is addictive. And that’s a bit of a shame because less than 40% of them say they have anything more than minimal training in nutrition. Since they are spectacularly unqualified to help, fully 90 per cent of EU doctors think the government should do something to reduce sugar consumption (but only half of them think it will).

Bringing all this back to money (as is their wont), the bean counters then tally up the winners and losers. They point out that, at $140 billion per annum, the cost of type II diabetes to the US health system is already more than $60 billion per annum higher than for tobacco related costs. Worse than that, it is growing at over $6 billion a year – and that’s just one consequence of sugar consumption. Credit Suisse estimate that up to 40% of the $1 trillion annual US health budget is now being gobbled up in sugar related chronic disease.

Even so, the Swiss number crunchers are fairly certain governments will do absolutely nothing to protect their citizens from the food industry. They point out that sugar is the second most lobbied commodity in the world (after oil). Just growing the stuff employs 350,000 people in Europe (and a further 15 million in China). To them it seems a safe bet that no politician will act to endanger those jobs, let alone the millions of jobs that depend on the down-the-line uses of sugar in soft drinks and processed food.

Unfortunately the victims (that would be us) seem to be getting wise to the link between sugar and disease. And this, Credit Suisse predicts, means that the processed food industry will soon need to ‘self-regulate’ if it is to avoid financial Armageddon (a drop in sales, that is).

In other words, we can expect to see Big Sugar start to behave a lot like Big Tobacco when the alarm bells started ringing about lung cancer. Any reader old enough to remember when the only thing that made a telephone portable was installing it in a car, will surely remember these gems from a forgotten age:

Nicotine is not addictive; the link between lung cancer and smoking is not proven; and the tobacco industry does not target children with its advertising.

They may even feel a nostalgic tear well up as Big Sugar dusts off Big Tobacco’s playbook with these little beauties:

Sugar is not addictive; the link between disease and sugar is not proven; and Big Sugar does not target children with its advertising.

And they’ll no doubt add those tactics to the already ubiquitous ‘blame the consumer’ (it’s all about personal responsibility you see) and ‘disrupt the regulators’ (make sure government committees are stacked with people with strong links to the food industry) which they have already begun to deploy.

Credit Suisse is rather more optimistic about self-regulation than am I. They imagine a future consisting of Big Sugar voluntarily removing sugar and then dancing into the sunset arm in arm with a thin and healthy consumer.

Solid science linking tobacco to lung cancer was first published in 1950. In 1994, the CEO’s of all the US tobacco companies were still testifying to congress that there wasn’t a problem. It wasn’t until 46 US States successfully bludgeoned them with overwhelming legal force in 1998 that they agreed to pay for some of the harm they cause. Even so the Tobacco companies remain extremely profitable businesses that continue to destroy the lives of hundreds of millions of addicts worldwide.

The science is now in on the links between sugar and chronic disease. Those diseases are crippling our health system and destroying the lives of billions of people. But if the tobacco precedent is anything to go by, nothing will be done about it until someone with very deep pockets takes up the fight. Got a minute Rupert?

November 28, 2013

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You know the world has gone mad when coke has less sugar than mayo.

By David Gillespie | Sugar | 4 Comments

Goodman Fielder have released their new 99% fat free mayonnaise just in time for the salad days of summer. The only problem is that it has more in common with a can of coke than mayonnaise. So why is allowed to be called mayonnaise and why does it have a Heart Foundation tick?

No one is sure who came up with the first recipe for mayonnaise. The Spanish reckon it came from Mahon in Spain and was nicked by the French in 1756. The French reckon they had it for ages before that. They say it was named after the Duke of Mayenne when he took the time to finish his chicken and mayo sanger before the Battle of Arques in 1589.

But wherever it came from there is general agreement on the recipe. You grab an egg yolk and whisk in olive oil. It’s a cool bit of chemistry for two such simple ingredients. The oil and the water in the yolk create an emulsion which is stabilised by the proteins and lecithin in the yolk. If you want to get all fancy you can drop in a bit of mustard or lemon juice to give it a sharper tang.

And that’s all there is to one of the yummiest and most widespread condiments in the world today. Except apparently if you are a food conglomerate trying to make a fat free mayo. Given that 80% of the product is fat (Olive Oil) this presents a wee problem. Don’t worry though, there is a solution, pack it with sugar instead.

Goodman Fielder’s new Praise Creamy Mayonnaise is 99% Fat Free. And while the label claims this is ‘Mayonnaise’, the ingredient list doesn’t look like anything the Duke of Mayenne was likely to be using. There is neither egg nor Olive Oil involved in its construction. Indeed the primary ingredient (besides water) is sugar. Here’s the full ingredient list (in descending order of use in the product):

Water (about 70%),

Sugar (26.8%),

Vinegar,

Thickener (1442),

Salt,

Vegetable Gums (415, 460, 466),

Lemon Juice,

Sunflower Oil (0.8%),

Spices,

Colour (171, Lutein),

Food acid (citric),

Flavour.

Based on the volumes of each ingredient used, this ‘mayonnaise’ is really just a sugar water emulsion flavoured with a bit of salt, vinegar and Sunflower Oil (0.8% of the total volume – there’s more lemon juice than oil in this baby).

Just for the kicks of it let’s compare the ingredients of the substance labelled as mayonnaise with coca-cola. Coke contains (in descending order)

Water [89%] (tick),

Sugar [10.6%] (tick – but only about a third as much)

Colour (Caramel 150d), (tick)

Food Acid (338), (tick)

Flavour, (tick)

Caffeine. (nup – none of that in the mayo-ish stuff, for now)

This white-sugar-syrup (I can’t bring myself to call it mayonnaise any longer) has almost 3 times the sugar content of coca-cola. But unlike coke, it is marketed as health food. It proudly bears an Australian Heart Foundation tick of approval. And that’s a bit odd. Because just last week the very same Foundation re-launched its campaign to ban sugary drinks in schools, hospitals and sports centres and heavily tax them everywhere else. But by now we’re used to this kind of cognitive dissonance (and casual disregard for our health) from the Heart Foundation.

Mayonnaise is a food consisting of fat and egg yolk. The similarity between that and what appears in this bottle of sugar-water begins and ends with the word mayonnaise on the label. It is an appalling abuse of our trust that our labelling laws allow this kind of outright deceit.

If this sort of boondoggle were permitted elsewhere you would be buying petrol made from used chip fat and cotton shirts made of the floor sweepings at the local barber shop (or, heaven forbid, waxing parlour). That kind of carry-on would immediately land the vendor in court, but when it comes to what you shove in your gob apparently anything goes.

Since our food regulators obviously care naught for accuracy in labelling, this example suggests you need to exercise real caution if you plan to buy packaged food. Ignore the front of the pack and peer closely at the ingredient list (bring your good glasses) if you want to have any hope of knowing what’s in the ‘mayo’ you’re being sold.

Of course you could always just buy an egg and some olive oil and get on the end of a whisk for a few minutes. Then you’d know the full ingredient list and the sugar content would be exactly 0.

November 18, 2013

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It’s time to stop mainlining statins

By David Gillespie | Big Fat Lies | 2 Comments

In Australia, statins (the class of drugs used to lower blood cholesterol) now chew up 13 per cent of the money paid out by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), and the amount shelled out for them by the Australian taxpayer (via the PBS) grew by a third in just the last year alone.

That’s a worry for taxpayers, but with one in three Australians over the age of 50 now taking them, a greater concern is that new research suggests statins significantly increase the risks of Type II Diabetes and dementia.

The United States Food and Drug Administration is worried enough about those little ‘side-effects’ to require that statins immediately carry warnings about diabetes and cognitive impairment. But here in the land of nod, we’ve happily become the world’s biggest statin pill-poppers.

Don’t get me wrong. Statins do work. The studies have shown that they do lower LDL cholesterol and they do reduce heart-disease in younger men who’ve already had a heart attack. But there’s a good deal of evidence to suggest that the benefits for these folks had nothing to do with the cholesterol-lowering and quite a lot to do with their blood-thinning properties.

Unfortunately (for drug marketers) ‘younger men who’ve already suffered a heart attack’ (and lived to tell the tale) is a very, very small market. The only way to turn a buck from statins was to convince doctors to prescribe it (and the PBS to fund it) for ‘prevention’ (among people whose only sign of illness is being diagnosed with a higher than ‘normal’ blood-cholesterol reading).

A comprehensive review published in 2007 of all of the major high-quality trials on statins concluded that for these not-sick people (who make up the overwhelming majority) taking statins did not alter the overall risk of dying at all.

The studies showed that we would need to treat 67 otherwise healthy people with statins for five years in order to prevent just one of them suffering a heart-disease event. This puts the drugs in the category of being almost completely ineffective. By way of comparison, we need to treat 11 people with antibiotics in order to completely cure 10 of them.

When the data were broken down by gender and age, the results became even less impressive. Statins delivered absolutely no benefit for women at all. And men aged over 69 (those most at risk of fatal heart attacks) enjoyed no benefits either. The only people the drug appeared to help were men aged 30–69, and then only by a very small absolute margin.

The reason for the disappointing results may be that statin drugs work by shutting down the enzyme we use to manufacture cholesterol. Unfortunately we also use that same enzyme to manufacture one of our primary anti-oxidants, co-enzyme Q10. Shutting down cholesterol production also means shutting down Q10 production (and thereby impairing our ability to fight heart disease and other types of inflammation).

This might be why (although these drugs have a big effect on cholesterol levels) they have very limited effect on heart-disease outcomes. It might also be that although statins lower cholesterol, this has nothing to do with why they lower risks for people who’ve already had a heart attack. Just like aspirin, statins reduce clotting. And just like aspirin, the people who benefit the most from statins are those who’ve already suffered a heart attack. But no one will make a fortune selling aspirin at 97 cents a box.

However they are not merely harmless profiteering. A series of studies has suggested relationships between statin usage and increased diabetes and cognitive impairment (dementia to you and me). And a significant independent analysis of the trials, conducted in 2011 by the ever reliable Cochrane Review, concluded that becasue of this doctors to be cautious in prescribing statins to people who hadn’t already had a heart attack.

Statins are powerful drugs that alter the function of important liver enzymes, and the evidence suggests that the only class of people who benefit are younger men who’ve already had a heart attack. The only people who should be given statins should be this very small group (and then only if their doctor feels the benefit outweighs the risk of diabetes and dementia).

The US regulators are ringing the alarm bells. But here the Australian Heart Foundation is more concerned that not enough people are taking preventative medication. The Australian Medical Association is much more cautious. They say statins should only be prescribed to high risk patients. Good advice, but clearly someone isn’t listening. Heart disease rates are high but don’t come anywhere near needing to put a third of the over fifties on statins.

Meanwhile millions of Australians continue to take a drug they don’t need and which the evidence says significantly increases their chronic disease risks. We need to stop slavishly following the drug marketing agenda. The practise of mass (and accelerating) prescription of statins must stop immediately.

November 14, 2013

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Peter FitzSimons stops eating sugar

By David Gillespie | Media, Sugar, Television | 9 Comments

Peter FitzSimons has battled with sugar and weight gain. The former Wallaby piled on the kilos after he hung up the boots.

Now at age 50, he takes on the challenge to cut sugar from his diet, with amazing results. Peter’s investigation asks is sugar really bad for you, or is it the victim of bad PR?

Read more about the Sunday Night story which shows how Peter lost 20 kilograms in just 10 weeks by not eating sugar.

“This is a life-changing book. I’m now 25 kilos lighter – simply by understanding and embracing the principles in Sweet Poison.”

Peter FitzSimons

Peter FitzSimons is a well-respected columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald and Sun-Herald, is the Chair of the Australian Republican Movement and has written over 27 best-selling books.

Get the Book

Four years on, Peter has now lost 45kgs. As he says:

“What I am is a bloke who was once fit enough to play Test rugby at 114 kilograms, before blowing out to a shattering 152 kilograms four years ago … who has now made his way back to 106 kilograms.”

He has now released his own book about exactly how he applied what he found in Sweet Poison.

November 14, 2013

1

Chocolate Caramel Sandwich Biscuits

By David Gillespie | Recipes | 3 Comments

MAKES 16 SANDWICHES (32 BISCUITS)

The creamy caramel centre between these chocolate-y biscuits will win over any sugarholic.

Biscuits
150 g unsalted butter, chopped and softened
2/3 cup dextrose
2 teaspoons vanilla essence, or to taste
1 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted
2 tablespoons cocoa powder, sifted
2 tablespoons cornflour, sifted

Caramel filling
1 cup dextrose
85 g unsalted butter, chopped
1/2 cup thickened cream
1 tablespoon cornflour
1 tablespoon water

Beat the butter, dextrose and vanilla with an electric mixer for 8–10 minutes or until light and creamy. Add the flour, cocoa and cornflour and beat until a dough forms. Form the dough into a disc, then wrap in plastic film and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced). Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
Roll out the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper until 5 mm thick. Use a 5 cm cookie cutter to cut out rounds from the dough, placing them on the prepared trays as you go.
Bake the biscuits for 10–12 minutes or until just dry and cooked. Cool on the trays for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
To make the caramel filling, whisk the dextrose in a saucepan over high heat until melted. Bring to the boil and cook for 2–3 minutes or until golden. Carefully whisk in the butter, then remove from the heat and whisk in the cream. Put the cornflour and water into a small jug and whisk until smooth, then add to the pan. Return the pan to low heat, then stir the mixture continuously for 3–4 minutes or until thickened. Leave to cool completely.
Spread the caramel filling over half of the cooled biscuits and sandwich with the remaining biscuits. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

November 14, 2013

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Why we need to know who is paying the bills

By David Gillespie | Conflicts of Interest, Vegetable Oils | One Comment

In October 2013, ABC’s science program, Catalyst ran a two part series attacking the status quo on heart disease causes and treatments. The show has been set upon from many quarters for failing to disclose conflicts of interest in those it relied upon to prosecute the case. But even a little bit of digging quickly reveals those weren’t the only conflicts of interest that weren’t disclosed.

Catalyst interviewed people who had clear conflicts of interest. Like many others, Professor Justin Coleman from the School of Medicine at Griffith University points out that Dr Jonny Bowden, a nutritionist and scathing critic of the animal-fat-causes-heart-disease hypothesis, also sells supplements. The cardiologist, Dr Stephen Sinatra also does a pretty extensive line in supplements. And Dr Michael Eades, general practitioner and diet book author is also peddling a full suite of stuff in bottles.

Undisclosed conflicts of interest infest the field of nutrition like biblical vermin and Professor Coleman was right to point them out. Catalyst should have made it clear that the people they were interviewing had other interests which any reasonable person would regard as a potential source of conflict.

This does not mean they should not have been interviewed or that what they were saying was wrong; just that the conflict should have been disclosed so the viewer could appropriately weigh what was being said.

Unfortunately, the critics apparently didn’t notice that Bowden, Sinatra and Eades weren’t the only people with undisclosed conflicts in the Catalyst programs. Associate Professor David Sullivan defended the incessant drive to lower cholesterol (and the use of statins to do it). He even went so far as to suggest that it’s possible that patients talk themselves into having side effects from taking statin drugs.

What Catalyst didn’t disclose was that Dr Sullivan has been a “Member of several advisory panels within the pharmaceutical industry including Pfizer Australia, AstraZenica, Merck Sharp and Dohme, Schering Plough, Sanofi Aventis etc.” Once again, this does not mean that his opinion of the evidence shouldn’t have been broadcast, just that the viewer should have been informed of the potential conflict.

Then of course there was the opinion of the National Heart Foundation. Once again there was no disclosure that it receives $3m a year from the processed food industry (Tick Program), has an undisclosed arrangement with the margarine industry (Mums United) and has its conference sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry.

And the trail of non-disclosure didn’t end there. Even after the shows aired, the commentary was equally infested.

On Monday the ABC’s Health Report interviewed Dr Peter Clifton about the Catalyst shows. Dr Clifton was highly critical of what Catalyst had to say. But the interviewer failed to inform the listener that Dr Clifton currently appears in an advertorial for MeadowLea margarine, is a member of Unilver’s (maker of Flora margarine) Advisory Panel and has recently completed research on the ‘benefits’ of margarine funded by Unilever.

Had this been disclosed, the listener would have been much better able to judge the veracity of statements like “if you swap saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat you might [my emphasis] get a 15% or so lowering of events” made by Dr Clifton during the interview.

Full disclosure of conflicts is a critical component of commentary in a field where billions in processed food and drug industry profits are at stake. So yes, Catalyst should have mentioned that some of those critiquing the status quo had vitamins and books to sell, but it was even more important that Catalyst and Health Report tell us about the drug and processed food industry conflicts affecting those on the defence team.

There is no excuse for failing to disclose conflicts – any conflicts. But flogging vitamins (however distasteful the practice) is a whole different level of conflict to consulting to the industries being criticised. This is even more important when academic voices of authority are presented as independent reviewers (as was the case in the Health Report). When that happens it is vital that their industry links (past and present) be announced alongside their glowing academic credentials.

Disclosure: I have written books about sugar, vitamin supplements and seed oils and if you buy them I will make some money, but I’ll tell you what they say for free: Don’t eat sugar or seed oils and don’t waste your money on supplements – there, I’ve just saved you a pile of cash. The fact that I am an author of relevant books and a lawyer is always disclosed in every interview I give.

November 13, 2013

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How vegetable oil causes cancer

By David Gillespie | Vegetable Oils | 23 Comments

“‘Vegetable’ oil makes you exceedingly vulnerable to cancer. Every extra mouthful of vegetable oil you consume takes you one step closer to a deadly (and irreversible) outcome.”

With these words David Gillespie begins his follow-up to the bestseller Big Fat Lies: How the diet industry is making you sick, fat & poor. In Big Fat Lies he analysed the latest scientific evidence to show us that vegetable oils, specifically seed oils, are dangerous to our health, despite that fact that they are recommended by government health agencies.

David believes that our bodies are not adapted to eat a diet which contains polyunsaturated fats in huge quantities. Our extraordinarily complex biochemistry works on an assumption that we will have a very small quantity of these fats in our diet and that every other fat we consume will come from animals or other sources of saturated fat or monounsaturated fat. This was the case until 200 years ago, but the industrial replacement of all fats with cheaper man-made vegetable oils has meant that it is almost impossible to buy food that does not contain polyunsaturated fats in the form of seed oils. They are in cooking oils, margarines, sauces, spreads, crackers, biscuits, pastry, fast food and most processed food.

In Toxic Oil he reveals the evidence to support his argument that an excess of seed oils can not only cause cancer and heart disease but also damage our eyes and immune systems. This practical guide also helps you navigate the supermarket, with recommendations for brands that are low in sugar and seed oils, and provides recipes for food that would normally be made with seed oils. This accessible, entertaining and sometimes shocking book is an essential first step towards living a longer, healthier life.

October 25, 2013

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The Gig is Up

By David Gillespie | Sugar | 3 Comments