Is Dr. Steven Gundry a quack?

In My Humble Opinion
1

A conman, a shill, a clickbait master? Or what he says he is, a highly skilled medical practitioner who has discovered some miracle cures for obesity?

I’ve been seeing the popup ads on FB and other places for years, and I usually skip past them as soon as humanly possible, but this morning one popped up and I thought “Oh, give it a listen for a minute.” Slow morning.

I lasted almost 25 minutes of a long “I will tell you my secret in only a few more minutes, but first I want to tell you how it was that I discovered…” spiel, and I came away with a few tidbits that kept me intrigued, mainly eating blueberries, goat cheese, and coconut oil is healthy, which comports with some of my eating habits anyway. But the spiel led to buying a bottle of snake oil for only $49.95, or something along those lines, and I thought “This isn’t a bad spiel. He’s a pretty good pitchman, he keeps repeating how well-credentialed he is and if half of it is true, he’s got an impressive resume, and 50 bucks isn’t that unreasonable for a bottle of snake oil that might help me lose weight.”

I didn’t buy it, of course, but I was impressed by the appeal of his spiel, including the pricing. Fifty bucks seems about the right amount to ask for–not so much that people will think “I can never afford that” and not so little that people will think “It’s probably colored water.” All the “sciencey” stuff (his word) is above my pay grade, so I can’t tell if it’s plausible mumbo-jumbo or absurdly laughable mumbo-jumbo. I thought I’d ask: has anyone here tried Dr. Steven Gundry’s magic elixir? Has anyone with more scientific knowledge than I have (which is to say, “anyone”) listened to his rap? Is there any definitive proof of him being a scam artist?

My own guess is that probably falls into the category of “It won’t kill you.” That is, there are folks who will lose weight just by drinking some harmless lo-cal placebo instead of snacking on a Milky Way bar, and others who will drop a few pounds for some other unrelated reason, and this constitutes his “fabulous” success rate. But there’s no harm checking around, is there?

I could probably supply a link easily, and I will if anyone doesn’t know what I am talking about, but I figure everyone has probably been exposed to this spiel that is all over the Internet for the last few decades.

2

Does this person have only one name?

And no, not everyone has been exposed to this spiel. I, for one, have no clue what you’re referring to.

3

Links, and the person’s full name, would really be helpful if you would like to have a discussion here. It’s never safe to assume that others here on the board do, in fact, know what, or who, you are talking about.

“I’m sure you’ve all heard of this, so I don’t need to give details or links” is often a problematic way to create an OP.

4

Sorry. Here’s his wikipedia page: wiki

I did put his full name in the body of the text, by the way. I’ll look for one of his infomercials. HERE

5

Happy to fill in the blanks here.

Pretty much everyone on the Dope has to have seen Gundry’s clickbait links on news and other websites, typically with him wagging a finger under headings like: “Top Heart Surgeon Begs You Not To Eat These Foods”.

Gundry has been termed “a once-prestigious heart surgeon turned diet quack”. He attracted attention with a diet book called “The Plant Paradox” which has been relentlessly panned.

Gundry also authored an abstract presented at an American Heart Association meeting, warning about heart damage from Covid vaccination. It didn’t age well.

In addition, Gundry offers a line of pricey supplements, because of course he does.

He comes off as another in the regrettable line of once-respected (or at least tolerated) physicians who’ve found a profitable niche in diet and Covid fearmongering, while cashing in on unproven supplements.

6

Maybe? It’s entirely possible I’ve seen one of those, but the name certainly didn’t ring a bell in the slightest. I see tons of clickbait-y ads with phony medical claims, and I cannot say that his stand out to me enough for me to say “ohh, that guy.” I mentally tune those ads out, because I know that they’re crap.

7

He said that people who smoke cigarettes live longer, that grapes are as bad for your health as Hershey’s bars, that all disease is cause by leaky gut, and that his diet would cure all disease. He’s a quack.

8

Let me ask @GailForce this: do you have any good reason to believe that he is not a quack?

9

Apparently not.

Anyway, thanks for those links. Covid is a giant warning sign for me–anyone who seems to be an anti-vaxxing nut (for any reason, including good ones) is suspicious in my book, right off the bat. I didn’t know that–the anti-vax stuff is sufficient for my purposes here.

10

I really wish people would stop assuming that everyone is familiar with something. No, we’re not. In particular, remember that not everyone here lives where you do and sees what media you do.

Edited to add, a lot of us have ad blockers in place, meaning we don’t see a lot of stuff you may.

11

Well, now you are. :grinning:

By the way, here’s a list of all the foods Gundry says you should avoid. It might be a bit of a challenge to keep from eating any of them, but if you die suddenly tomorrow, don’t say Steven didn’t warn you.

12

Nope. But it was a really skillful pitch. He seems friendly, non-oppositional, well trained, and very well spoken. Of course, the best reason to think he is a quack is that his spiel was leading up to selling his magic gunk, and after a really long buildup that seemed just this side of illegitimate. That is, the delaying tactics he employed seemed almost plausible, “I just need to explain one more thing before I get to the really good stuff that will change your life.” I was full of admiration for his marketing skill, but along the way I thought “Hey, maybe someone on the Straight Dope has tried this stuff. It would be interesting to hear from someone with first hand experience.”

13

If your “FREE!*” trial includes somewhere down in the fine print that–

*by signing up for this sample you agree to begin receiving our product at the regular price of $$$ each, unless you specifically cancel, which we will make difficult and inconvenient to do

–then it’s a scam.

14

No, I think his version was “MONEY BACK GUARANTEED.” I’m sure it was based on some well-tested basis of “This pulls more marks than that does.”

15

Moderating:

Fix title for you. Please ensure you include the full name in title in the future for obscure figures and people.

16

So would reading the full OP before replying. His full name is mentioned in the post.

17

I’ll kind of defend @Jackmannii’s insinuation here, that we’ve all seen their click bait links somewhere, but I’ll also defend the other posters saying “don’t assume” because while I’ve seen said links (and went back and checked and at least one was indeed Gundry) I doubt that most of us do anything different than @kenobi_65 for example and tune the crap out without ever being aware of who the pusher was.

But yeah, all signs point to quack, or, rather a snake oil salesman trying to make a buck. Granted there’s often a lot of overlap, but I don’t know the degree to which he believes any of his own BS. And for the rest of us, it doesn’t really matter much if he’s a hypocrite or a true believer - the IRL results are largely the same.

18

That’s the problem. Too many people can’t see past the pitch when the person is likeable. You said yourself that he went on and on and on without getting to the heart of the matter, and then he offered a miracle cure which no one else knows.

Classic scam artist technique. People like him are the reason my close relative falls for all the conspiracies.

19

Fair, but in the fourth paragraph.

20

Dr. Steven Gundry might come across as well-credentialed, but his nutritional advice has sparked significant controversy in scientific circles. Despite his impressive medical background, the bold claims he makes—particularly about the supposed harm caused by lectins—don’t stand up to rigorous scientific examination. Many of his ideas have been called into question by nutrition experts, as they lack support from solid, peer-reviewed research. Rather than relying on evidence, Gundry leans heavily on anecdotal stories and self-published work, which weakens the credibility of his assertions. While he may sound convincing, much of his guidance borders on pseudoscience rather than well-founded nutritional advice.

IOW, he’s a well-credentialed quack. :duck: