Less food for thought.

Food, together with fight, flight and fertility, are often quoted as being the 'big four' Fs of Darwinian human factors for survival. For most of history humans have struggled to obtain sufficient food for survival or for civilisations to flourish. Calories apart, the other ingredients of food are equally important for optimal health. South Africa owes its earliest Western settlements to the need for fresh food supplies to prevent sailors on the sailing ships rounding the Cape to trade with the East developing scurvy. South Africa has provided important research into the effects of nutritional deficiencies such as kwashiorkor, or excesses such as iron overload resulting in haemochromatosis. Currently food excesses are fuelling the great new worldwide epidemic of obesity and its related maladies such as diabetes and hypertension. Some medical research and teaching may have contributed to this scourge. Vast industries help fuel the obesity epidemic. Another industry feeding off these excesses provides promises of reduced weight and desirable body shapes. This is the weight loss industry. It has spawned books by the dozen, countless magazine articles, many dietary programmes, and the usual range of useless or outright dangerous products peddled by the unscrupulous to those susceptible to appealing but unproven claims. In his book The Lore of Running, the 'bible' for runners, Tim Noakes, Professor of Exercise and Sports Science at the University of Cape Town, advocated the carbohydrate loading that was the firm belief at the time. However, finding that he was pre-diabetic, he embarked on reviewing the literature on foods and has undergone a dietary belief conversion. He now preaches a different message: out go the carbs, and in come fats (a heresy given former views) and more protein. Furthermore, The Lore of Running and his autobiography, Challenging Beliefs, are to be updated to reflect this radical change of understanding. The fact that Noakes has lost a great deal of weight, and that his blood chemistry parameters and running capacity have improved, is insufficient proof of his new understanding. This requires much more evidence, much of which he claims is already in the literature. The academic literature is also full of contradictions concerning the cause and remedies of obesity. And as with all academic matters, turf is jealously guarded. However, it is the nature of science to challenge its perceived beliefs and to change them if proved wrong. Difficulty in changing perceptions is a human frailty …