The Healthy Truth
It's part of the deal when you become a doctor that family, friends and anyone who discovers you are a doctor, will take every opportunity they get to ask you their most pressing health question.
Working as a doctor and television journalist means I get the added bonus of having medical questions shouted at me from across the street.
“Hey Doc, what do you reckon this rash is?” is always an awkward favourite.
But without fail the one topic I get asked about the most is food; does this diet work? When should I start feeding my baby peanuts? Why can't I lose weight eating fat-free?
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And this is no great surprise. What we eat directly effects how we feel, and people are now more aware than ever of the impact a diet can have on their overall health.
And that excites me. Everyone has to eat, and if everyone is eating the right types of foods, for the right health reasons, then we all get to be healthier, right?
Sadly, no. The complicated part of this nutritional utopia is the fact that nobody can figure out what the hell the right types of foods are, and what to eat for the right health reasons, with any certainty. And it's starting to really annoy me.
Every day we are bombarded with new eating fads, food products, dietary research and food websites claiming they have the answer.
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I’m not saying they don't, but common sense would suggest that they can’t all be the perfect answer to our ever expanding waistlines or soaring rates of lifestyle disease, such as diabetes.
The food and weight loss industry is so crammed with vague claims and confusing slogans that it is impossible for anyone to decipher what they should actually be eating, even if it's sitting on a dinner plate right in front of them.
So I've decided that we all need some answers, and that's why we are kicking off The Healthy Truth - a series of Seven News health investigations, focused this week on food and its impact on our health.
Take the Paleo Diet, also known as the Caveman, Primal, or Stone-age Diet. It was the most-Googled diet last year and has a legion of loyal followers, and growing at a staggering pace.
In loose terms, the Paleo Diet adopts the philosophy that we should all be eating more like our Palaeolithic ancestors from a time before the invention of modern day agriculture 10,000 years ago.
It claims that, genetically, the human body is designed to deal with food which is sourced from hunting, fishing and gathering, as opposed to those items grown from agriculture such as wholegrains, sugar, dairy and legumes.
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And if you can follow this way of eating, you will successfully protect yourself against modern day diseases like diabetes, obesity and heart disease.
There are creative and compelling arguments from both the believers and the critics of this diet, making getting to the absolute truth tough. Both sides passionately claim they have the research to back up their advice, but as is often the case the strength of the scientific evidence is not always as definitive as we would all like.
I don’t claim to be nutrition expert or diet guru, so I am left to interrogate the evidence by applying my own knowledge and training as a doctor to the conclusions I make about this diet.
I can say the Paleo Diet is definitely not the worst diet on the planet. In fact, there are key elements to the Paleo way of life that I apply to my own eating habits. And modern nutritional science even concedes there are some key elements of the diet that we should all be encouraged to adopt; we all need to eat less processed food, actively aim to cut as much sugar as possible from our daily diet, and eat more fresh, whole foods that we cook ourselves.
However, I disagree with cutting out whole food groups without a medical reason, and feel that in its strictest form it’s restrictive nature makes it an unrealistic option for many.
I have also investigated what many health experts are claiming could be the next big killer - sugar.
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It's been described as sweet tobacco, poison even, and to be as addictive as cocaine and heroin. Yet on average we each consume 56 kilograms of sugar every year, a lot of the time without even knowing it.
Growing research about the damage sugar does to our bodies and its impact on public health has seen the World Health Organisation reduce its dietary recommendations.
As a medical practitioner and a father, the sheer abundance of sugar from non-natural sources, within the everyday Western diet scares me.
Sure it tastes great, and I am the first to admit I enjoy a block of chocolate or lolly now and then, but successfully trying to follow the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) guidelines to minimise excessive intake of sugar as often as possible is virtually impossible.
Sugar is needed by our body for energy, and to add to the confusion it may be called any number of different names, including sucrose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, maltose, dextrose, raw sugar, cane sugar, malt extract and molasses.
In very broad terms, there are two different types of sugar found in foods and drinks - those that contain natural sugars like fruit (fructose) and dairy (lactose) and those that contain added sugars like desserts, cakes, some cereals, chocolate and sweetened beverages such as soft drinks, sports drinks, energy drinks and so on. Fruit juice is also high in sugar, both natural and added.
If we continue to knowingly and unknowingly consume as much sugar as we currently are, predictions that the obesity epidemic will continue to grow will be true.
This will mean the number of people with diabetes will also climb, and as a result lifestyle related disease will continue to be the number one cause of death in Australia, claiming tens of thousands of lives every year.
So although it’s not just as simple as completely blaming sugar, calling it the next big killer probably doesn’t seem that unreasonable does it?
Dr Andrew Rochford's series of special reports, The Healthy Truth, will air on Seven News from Monday September 15 at 6pm.
