Major Fredrik Söderlund, Swedish Armed Forces, challenges inadequately updated doctors and dietitians on who can best improve health in people with diabetes type 2. The embarrassing thing is that he’d likely win:

The recent report from SBU (The Swedish Council on Health Technology Assessment), he calls “opening Pandora’s box”. Hopefully he’s right.

Here’s the full article, translated into English:

Career Officer Challenges Doctors and Dietitians

– I challenge all doctors and dietitians in Linköping, who are advocating a conventional treatment for diabetics, to improve health in a type 2 diabetic. Now Major Fredrik Söderlund is anxiously awaiting a response.

A career officer, working for free as a diet counselor in his spare time, sticks his neck out quite a bit. How did this happen?

– I suffered increasing problems with psoriasis and chronic nasal congestion. I googled around for information and by chance I ended up on Annika Dahlqvist’s blog, “the mother” of low-carb in Sweden. A Fat Diet! I thought it sounded totally insane. We have all learned that you suffer heart attacks from eating fat. But, I found testimonials on how many, many had been helped by changing their diet. As I had also started to gain weight, and was often tired and lacking energy, I gave it a chance. This was five years ago, and it was a major turn-around in my life. For the first time I had found a diet, a tool, that worked.

Why becoming a diet counselor?

– Many people around me, friends and colleagues, began to ask what had happened to me. Several colleagues had received calls from their health care providers that their health markers were poor. They followed my example, and to their doctors’ great amazement, they succeeded in improving their health markers. We contacted the cardiology department at the hospital, and were told that as long as the patients lose weight and improve their health markers this must be OK. This led to lectures for health care professionals and to the public.

You are not a doctor, nor are you a dietitian.

– I’d say that many people today are more educated than health care professionals, when it comes to how our diet affects our bodies. In medical school they spend ONE week on nutrition!

But we have eaten grains in the form of bread since ages ago…

– But only for 4,000 years, and never in combination with as much refined sugar as we have in the last decades. Blood sugar levels have hit the ceiling for many of us.

How do you know if you’re sensitive?

– Overweight, GI issues and constant sugar cravings are all warning signs. The sugar cravings go away after a few days, but if I cheat with a piece of cake, it will start all over again. Therefore, I mainly stick to a strict low-carbohydrate diet, ie foods with no more than 5 gram of carbs per 100 grams and no more than 20 gram of carbohydrates per day.

Could we call this a “sugar alcoholic”?

– Maybe. The problem is that simple carbohydrates are not only found in sugar, but also in the form of starch in grain flours, bread, pasta, rice and potatoes. The most sensitive of all are diabetics. Telling a diabetic that the diet should include 60% carbohydrates is insane.

You are very angry and frustrated?

– Of course. Diabetics are often told that there is nothing else for them to do, other than taking medications. I have personally helped around 30 people to reduce, or even discontinue, their medications.

You don’t worry about infuriating people now?

– No, the SBU report last week was like opening Pandora’s box. There’s a food revolution going on and this work has to be done.

More

Corren: Career Officer Challenges Doctors and Dietitians (Original article in Swedish, by Carina Glenning, Östgöta Correspondenten, Sweden. E-mail: carina.glenning@corren.se)

“Fat Trims Your Waistline”

Swedish Expert Committee: A Low-Carb Diet Most Effective for Weight Loss

What Happens If You Eat 5,800 Calories Daily on an LCHF Diet?

“I Was Wrong, You Were Right”

From 222 lbs to 134 lbs in Five Seconds with LCHF

New Analysis: LCHF Best For Long-Term Weight and Health Markers

LCHF for Beginners