The Alluring Pull Of ‘Groupthink’ In The Relentless Opposition To Healthy Low-Carb Living

The low-fat dogma is more about mindless groupthink than anything else

I was recently encouraged by low-carb diabetes legend Dr. Richard Bernstein to look up the term “groupthink” on Wikipedia for an apt description of what is happening with the relentless and might I add stubborn opposition to healthy low-carb living even in the midst of a growing body of scientific evidence in support of this way of eating. See if this definition has some ring of truth to it (the bold sections are my added emphasis):

Groupthink is a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict and reach consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Individual creativity, uniqueness, and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness, as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking. A variety of motives for this may exist such as a desire to avoid being seen as foolish, or a desire to avoid embarrassing or angering other members of the group. Groupthink may cause groups to make hasty, irrational decisions, where individual doubts are set aside, for fear of upsetting the group’s balance.

You know, if the shoe fits…it’s hard to argue that this isn’t exactly what is happening right now with the low-carb lifestyle by those who feel threatened by it in some form or fashion. Whether it is the food manufacturers and fast food industry who stand to go bankrupt if people cut down or eliminate their consumption, the pharmaceutical industry who doesn’t want people to start coming off of their cash cow drugs, the diet industry who constantly repackages variations on the same old fat-cutting, exercise-till-you-drop weight loss programs, or the low-fat vegetarian promoters who scoff at the notion that eating meat and fatty foods can even remotely be considered healthy, livin’ la vida low-carb is indeed a menace to their society and must be opposed no matter what.

The real danger of this kind of active groupthink against the low-carb lifestyle is it leads people further and further away from the truth about their health. And yet even more insidious than that is the fact that the very things that are encouraged and promoted as healthy by the so-called “experts” are precisely what is making people even more unhealthy. It’s a sickening paradox that people in the future will someday wonder why nobody ever seemed to notice it while it was happening. Well, some of us do see what’s going on which is what motivates me to get up everyday and write so passionately about this subject that is so sorely needed in our society by those suffering from obesity, diabetes, and worse.

I recently received an outstanding e-mail from an 57-year old MD in Orlando, Florida who is a Type 1 insulin dependent diabetic. He’s a fan of my podcast show because he says it makes him think about what he believes is true about health even when he doesn’t always immediately agree. Obviously, this is someone who does NOT subscribe to the groupthink mentality. Here’s what he wrote about the podcast:

They offer an insight into diet not found elsewhere. The more one gets exposed to this process, the more one understands the validity and challenges the controversy. In the process, I have been pouring over the many books that your authors have written.

I enjoy receiving feedback from medical professionals like this who are opening their eyes to the realization that everything they thought was true may in fact be based on incomplete truths and even outright lies. That’s why in a court of law you swear to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.” For this Florida doctor with Type 1 diabetes, it was his own personal health issues that forced him to break from groupthink and seek out the truth on his own.

I have tried many things (to control diabetes) and the only thing that consistently works is the low-carb lifestyle. Low-carb in combination with the Bernstein methods is the only thing that actually works in the treatment of this disease.

I’ve said this before and I certainly don’t want it to be taken in the wrong way. But I wish every doctor who still clings to the notion that low-carb diets are dangerous and unhealthy would have to deal with diabetes in their own life. Until it hits home like it did this physician in Orlando, the broken record recommendations will continue on because we KNOW the way we’re treating this disease is the ONLY way. WRONG!

Even the great Dr. Bernstein himself has been ridiculed and scorned by those in the American Diabetes Association (ADA) for daring to challenge the methods they have been promoting to diabetics over the years. While they’re somewhat acknowledging low-carb now (albeit just for weight loss over a one-year period), a more explicit endorsement of healthy low-carb living for helping diabetics control their blood sugar and insulin levels is entirely appropriate based on what we know about carbohydrate-restriction for people suffering from this terrible disease. The Florida doctor who e-mailed me couldn’t agree more.

I feel the ADA and other villains out there that denounce this behavior are actively subverting the lives of the diabetics. People need to realize that there is a low-carb option. Thanks to you they are hearing it.

Oh, I’m not the only one sharing about the wonderful benefits of healthy low-carb living. But it is a privilege for me to stand side-by-side with some of the best and brightest researchers in the scientific community (many of whom are members of The Metabolism Society) who are conducting the studies that are showing what is happening anecdotally in the millions of us who have chosen to consume a high-fat, low-carb diet. The sudden emergence of hundreds of low-carb blogs and web sites is an indicator that the truth is spreading like wildfire across the Internet and seeping into the minds of those who may be caught up in groupthink mentality. Will they continue to bite their tongue about what they’ve learned in agonizing silence to the majority consensus viewpoints brought on by little to no disagreement or will they finally break free from the bondage of groupthink and share with the whole world the life-changing impact that healthy low-carb living can produce? The physician who e-mailed me revealed it was information he read on the Internet that finally convinced him:

Being in the medical community in Orlando, Florida I have had access to the best physicians in our community in my treatment — and Lord knows they tried. But it was not until the Internet and exposure to alternative methods that I began to prevail in my treatment — foremost is Dr. Richard Bernstein and his book.

In addition to Dr. Bernstein, he said Gary Taubes, Dr. Steven Gundry, Dr. Loren Cordain, Drs. Mike & Mary Dan Eades, Dr. Mary C. Vernon, Mark Sisson and others I have featured on my podcast show have “thoroughly opened (his) mind and altered (his) perspective.”

Being trained and somewhat brainwashed by conventional medical thought, I initially found it hard to accept the low-carb lifestyle. Just finding that there are so many other great thinkers out there…has been enlightening. In fact, it is only the mavericks and nonconventional thinkers who are challenging dogma and making changes possible for the rest of us.

I’ll proudly be called a maverick any day of the week if it gets people to wake up to the truth about the negative impact carbohydrates are having on their health. Quite frankly, too many people are just oblivious to the damaging effects of sugar and foods that turn to sugar in the body (which is virtually every carbohydrate you consume) because nobody has told them any better. Ironically, just about everyone inherently knows to avoid fat and yet this is the one macronutrient people need to be eating MORE of in conjunction with a reduced-carbohydrate intake. The world really is upside down and my new physician friend in Orlando agrees.

I have always been amazed that we in medical science do not know how to feed humans. You would think that this would have been worked out long before now.

And this brings us back to the whole concept of groupthink again. As long as nobody questions the status quo, all is well. But anytime that utopian world is challenged even slightly, there’s an uproar like you’ve never seen before. It happens over and over again, but I think the emergence of doctors like this one and many other brave ones across the United States and around the world are becoming more the rule than the exception. It’s obvious with obesity and diabetes rates getting way out of control that something about what we are currently doing is not working and it’s time for a change. Groupthink be gone!

Incidentally, Wikipedia lists 7 ways groupthink can be avoided that are worthy of mentioning. Here are my practical applications for those people who so ardently oppose low-carb living:

1. Share any objections and doubts your have about low-fat diets freely.
2. Don’t be persuaded by opinions made by low-fat diet experts.
3. Study the benefits of low-carb and encourage your friends to do the same.
4. In fact, look at all nutritional approaches to examine their pros and cons.
5. Contact people in the low-carb community to ask questions you may have.
6. Invite low-carb researchers to speak at meetings about low-fat diets.
7. Purposely play devil’s advocate to study the positive aspects of low-carb.

Perhaps famous low-fat, vegetarian diet advocates like Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. T. Colin Campbell, who both claim to let the science guide them in their nutritional recommendations, would be open to applying these anti-groupthink steps into their organizations so the evidence for livin’ la vida low-carb can truly be seen. Fat chance of that happening! Who knows, maybe we’ll have a big powwow featuring leading low-fat and low-carb advocates at some point in the near future to come to a real consensus that is based on an open acceptance of the data rather than the imagined opinions of dogma. It could happen and it MUST happen if we are going to get a handle on the weight and health issues that plague us.