If they pull that long spiel thing that you’re describing, I pretty will already dismiss them as a quack. You don’t need tactics like that if you have evidence on your side.
The purpose of the tactic is to weed out the people who would be incredulous, and to deepen the pull in those interested, in the same way TV shows can get you to keep watching with cliffhangers even if you’re starting to lose interest or want to call it a night.
i have seen so many quacks and BS on my elderly aunts FB feed … there are even “fads” like last year it was miracle weight loss gummies which even though I take them doesn’t do s—
This seasons fad is new Zealand bee venom… I keep joking with my aunt that the scenario in movie “the wasps woman” is going to happen to her
My favorite quack is this moron that pops up every so often that says "Whole grains are a scam to kill you because they shred your innards and man isn’t supposed to eat them " and spends 90 minutes calling every reputable nutritionist and USDA expert a liar …
The guy’s name means nothing to me, and his face is completely unfamiliar, as well. But I have an ad blocker, and clickbait irritates the hell out of me, so I don’t even look at the thumbnails, if I can help it.
Interesting that you posted this today as I saw a ‘story’ of his on Instagram this morning. I did watch. It was the one about leaky gut saying how lectins are bad and that prebiotics and probiotics are what is needed. His jar of whatever it is was $69.95 but for just today $49.95 but if you buy 3 then $44.95 each. You are right that he is a very good marketer but I passed.
Leaky gut seems like it should be a relatively easy thing to test for. Are there more of these other chemicals (or their byproducts) in the blood stream of people who purportedly have this syndrome? Do the numbers notably go up when they consume these foods, at higher rates than a control group? And, when they do the biopsy to detect intestinal absorption problems, do they see the reported affects in the biopsied tissue?
It’s remarkable to see that our culture has no ability to internalize this kind of bogus nonsense - these long form “infomercials” for snake oil have been going on since the dawn of time and yet they still feature prominently in such skeptical discussions as the august Straight Dope!
Right. I may have seen the clickbait a thousand times and just let it sit there on screen w/o checking out what/who. Only became really aware of “Dr. Gundry” barely weeks ago because of an otherwise entirely separate online item where a public figure mentioned eating/avoiding foods from “Dr. Gundry’s list” among a number of other things that have helped her well-being, and one of the commenters posted details.
Don’t be so quick to judge. The man has worked out that all disease has a single cause (a leaky gut) so all we need is a diet that will plug that gut.
Constipation could save humanity!
There’s lots of money to be made promoting the idea of “leaky gut” causing disease, but very little science.
There are buzzphrases commonly used by quacks and supplement dealers for marketing purposes, such as “gets to the root cause”, “holistic”, “they don’t want you to know” and so on. “Leaky gut” is a similar red flag.
I’ve seen the click bait links. No need to dig in and find out if he’s dishing out harmful medical advice. Even in the unlikely event he’s not he’s still conning people.
You linked to his Wikipedia page, but apparently didn’t read it?
Gundry has made erroneous claims that lectins, a type of plant protein found in numerous foods, cause inflammation resulting in many modern diseases.[5] His Plant Paradox diet suggests avoiding all foods containing lectins.[6] Scientists and dietitians have classified Gundry’s claims about lectins as pseudoscience.[2][6][7]
Emphasis mine.
Correct. I was rushing to supply some link, which I had failed to do in my initial post, and this was the first link that popped up.
But thanks to all who’ve shown me all the support for suppositions I could ever want. I’m pretty skeptical in general, and frugal in the extreme, so there was always very little chance that I would buy his elixer, but I did marvel at his infomerical’s skill.
That’s the skill of his pitch–he doesn’t run down other doctors’ ideas, just patiently explains at length how and why it was that the medical establishment (including his younger self) sincerely
came to their erroneous conclusions, along the way to explaining (at even greater length) how and why it was that he came to see the light. Much more subtle, and more effective.
Now I have to figure out how to get rid of all this “Dr. Gundry” crap that pops up relentlessly on my laptop since I started this thread.
A lone voice, crying in the wilderness…
He’s a quack, but the diet he advocates for isn’t that odd. Take a close look at the foods on that list. It’s mostly grains and refined sugars, plus the nightshade vegetables. If you read one of his books (he has several, but they’re all very similar), what he advocates for is to eat mostly vegetables, minus the aforementioned grains, simple sugars, and nightshades, and supplementing with seafood or poultry once or twice a week. In particular he doesn’t advocate for the stereotypical keto ingredients like red meat or other processed foods high in saturated fats.
In other words, he hides the quackery behind a diet that seems reasonable, which IMHO is how he’s gained a large following.
It goes beyond “odd” to urge people to avoid such an exhaustive list of healthy foods, including pasta, rice, potatoes, milk (and a wide range of dairy products), bread, bananas, blueberries and a huge number of other fruits and vegetables (there aren’t many left to choose from once Gundry gets through demonizing them), nuts, seeds and plant oils on the basis of a theory lacking in supporting evidence and rejected by the vast majority of physicians and diet experts.
It’s not as though Gundry is the only crank to have successfully monetized weird dietary advice and built up a business selling dubious supplements and books. Joe Mercola and Mike Adams (of Natural News infamy) have harvested gullible clients in similar fashion. Gundry’s recent foray into antivax advocacy follows in their rancid footsteps.
Mainly, I’m just tired of seeing his finger-wagging clickbait promos.
Is that David Perlmutter?
Very good article, thanks.
Interesting how often the same themes crop up among these diet gurus. Perlmutter co-wrote one of his brain books with a “medical anthropologist and shaman” and claimed that of his “miracle” cures, “Virtually all of these patients were somehow connecting with what the shaman had referred to as the Great Spirit.”
It’s great if your treatments open up a portal to “the Great Spirit” - but even better if you are the Great Spirit.
Recently, one of Perlmutter’s buddies, supplement pusher Joe Mercola (who has his own list of Foods You Should Never Eat), came under the spell of an adviser calling himself Bahlon, severed ties with old allies and began referring to himself as the new Jesus.
We can laugh, but these people are still revered by millions of followers.
no this quack has/had some office in Beverly Hills…his shtick was whole grains tear up your stomach and other organs and most grain isn’t needed at all etc …
Does he mean they mechanically cause damage, or is he saying there’s something about digestive biochemistry that causes damage?