California physician reveals the 'deadly lies' doctors tell patients about conditions that plague millions of Americans

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A California doctor has revealed the biggest 'lies' he claims doctors tell their patients, which could leave them vulnerable to serious chronic diseases.

Dr Robert Lufkin, physician and professor at both the University of California - Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, has been diagnosed with four chronic diseases throughout his life.

These include gout, high blood pressure, pre-diabetes, and dyslipidemia, which causes an abnormal level of fats in the blood.

In his book 'Lies I Taught in Medical School,' Dr Lufkin explains that his own health journey 'woke him up' to flaws in the medical system, including doctors treating symptoms rather than looking for an underlying cause.

And he pointed to 'lies' - including some he used to teach himself - about several chronic diseases, including obesity and diabetes, which plague millions of Americans.

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Dr Lufkin writes he has tried every fad diet and he's been a high consumer of processed foods, a vegan, carnivore and a low-fat and/or law-carb dieter.

Now, however, he eats as few processed foods as possible and limited carbohydrates, sugars, processed fats, oils and grain.

Despite the success he has seen personally in making lifestyle changes, he cautions that the 'lies' and alternatives he proposes 'are all mere hypotheses - imperfect models attempting to explain the clinical experience of improving health.'

But they come from dozens of studies and scientific literature from experts.

Dr Lufkin wrote in the first chapter of his book: 'I was 100 percent a medical establishment person. I was all for organized systems, and my background shows that. I was an unofficial spokesperson for the establishment.

'Then I developed four diseases that I had been taught (and had taught others) were aging related with possibly a genetic component.

'I did everything right, and I was going to die. That shock raised the alarms in my head. There was something deeply wrong in the medical system. I’d been fed lies, and I needed to know the truth.'

Dr Lufkin, who focuses on longevity and consciousness, noted 'we are in a medical crisis much worse than COVID-19, and most people aren't even aware of it' because of the rising rates of chronic illnesses.

Between 2000 and 2010, the percentage of middle-aged adults with two or more chronic diseases jumped from 16 to 21 percent. Just four years later, that percentage rose to 32 percent.

In 2024, that rate is now up to 40 percent, Dr Lufkin said.

Dr Robert Lufkin is a physician focusing on longevity and consciousness in California

The first lie Dr Lufkin details is about obesity, which plagues an all-time high of 42 percent of Americans.

'We are now in the worst global epidemic of obesity that the world has ever known,' he wrote.

'Our understanding of the causes of this epidemic and the approaches to treating it is based on a simple lie: that “a calorie is a calorie,” implying that obesity is caused by eating too many calories.'

Dr Lufkin noted this statement is untrue because obesity is not solely caused by consuming too many calories, saying they are not 'sufficient' enough to create obesity and that different types of calories have different effects on obesity.

Sometimes, calories become fat and are stored in the body, while other times they are directly burned by the body.

The doctor wrote: 'The key control point for weight gain is how many of the calories we consume are sent to be stored versus those burned. That number doesn’t depend on the total number of calories but instead on a biochemical signal in our bodies.'

That signal is the hormone insulin, which 'tells the cells to store calories primarily as fat. If no calories are stored as fat, then they will be burned. There will be no weight gain,' he added.

'If insulin is turned on and fat storage occurs, fewer calories will be burned,' leading to packing on the pounds.

Without the insulin signal, however, calories will be burned instead, preventing weight gain. Therefore, someone with insulin resistance - such as a person with type 2 diabetes - would have excess insulin levels and an increased risk of weight gain.

Certain foods like carbohydrates also trigger more insulin production, regardless of calories.

'All calories do not have the same effect on weight gain. Therefore, weight loss is not just about fewer calories... Obesity is not just a calorie problem; it's an insulin problem,' Dr Lufkin wrote.

The calorie 'lie,' he explained, began in the 1970s as there was an increase in obesity and the first set of Dietary Guidelines for Americans was published.

Guidelines recommended upping intake of carbs and lowering intake of fat.

The misconception grew in the 1990s when the food pyramid was released, which stressed a large consumption of carbs, which strongly stimulate insulin, leading many Americans to change their diet to high-carb and low-fat.

Dr Lufkin wrote: 'By replacing the fat calories with carbohydrate calories, we turned up insulin and sent the message to store fat. And store fat we did.

'At about the same time that we substituted carbohydrates for fat in our diets, the obesity rate skyrocketed — and it hasn’t slowed down since.'

Insulin - and carbohydrates - doesn't just play a role in obesity, it is also at the center of diabetes.

One in three Americans is diabetic or pre-diabetic, and the CDC estimates 80 percent of them don't know they have the condition.

According to the CDC, 10 percent of US adults suffered from diabetes from 2001 to 2004.

That number increased to 13.2 percent in 2017 to 2020. It dropped slightly to about 12 percent in 2021, the latest data available.

Dr Lufkin called the overall upward trend in cases 'the worst epidemic of diabetes that the world has ever known.'

'The diabetes lie declares that the best way to treat type 2 diabetes is with insulin.'

Type 2 diabetes makes up 90 percent of diabetes cases. It is caused mostly by genetics and lifestyle, including diet - such as one high in carbs - and weight.

As Dr Lufkin discussed in his section on obesity, he writes that carbs stimulate insulin. When levels of the hormone get too high, insulin resistance occurs.

This causes cells to be less sensitive to a dose of insulin that type 2 diabetics give themselves in an attempt to control their disease.

Giving insulin will 'raise the body’s overall insulin levels, which will worsen insulin resistance, the underlying cause of type 2 diabetes,' the physician wrote.

Dr Lufkin argued that dietary changes - such as removing refined carbs like white bread - and exercise could be more effective than insulin itself in lowering A1C, or average blood sugar levels over a two-three month span.

He said: 'Our healthcare system is sadly much more optimized to deliver prescriptions for insulin and other drugs for managing type 2 diabetes than giving instructions on how to reverse it by changing our nutrition to avoid the causes.

'To be fair, many people would rather take a pill or a shot instead of changing their lifestyles. But most people don’t know how powerful and effective lifestyle choices can be.'