Bestselling author and one of the u. K. s leading active b. C. Can painters thats in the hotel and so good to talk to you thank you very much for your time likewise exxon i know that you are now writing your new book about the link between the worst complications from call it 19 and poor Metabolic Health and i heard you mention the u. K. Prime minister Boris Johnson as a manifestation of that what exactly do you mean. Well lets rate important issues your phrase oxana so this is something ive been looking at so many months analyzing the recess and the date set and its quite clear 1st and foremost that people get seems to suffer the worst complications it might seem almost certainly have some underlying condition and when you look at those conditions such as such diabetes i took the role really in lifestyle and more specifically what we put in some outs that we and well you know. How this became a bit more. How should i put it it was a got a lot of the way and us so i mean you can and internationally of course you know there was a great scare here in britain when our Prime Minister of our strengths and all i meant. Was him since becoming one seen in my 1st observation as a doc so we observe things you know we always you know think about things from the very basic level when we when we even treat patients we look at our parents 1st thing you think you know hes autistic it was quite terrible because to me with my background knowledge. Boris johnsons weight which we know you know hes had problems with it for a long time hes been open about that you know his b. M. I. In the sort of 3536 kind of way so base. What was the link because hes also a mission then you know its to explain it all essential i mean very simple terms access gaudi fat basically isnt just a respect to so many diseases it appears to be something that a sexy immune system in an adverse way but im sure you would agree with him in that it may be ok for the doctors to observe the a patients body type but its certainly considered it implied if not outright offensive to make any comments on a persons appearance especially. You know how he or she looks and i want you bad you know the social taboo is one of the reasons why it is so difficult to discuss this elephant in the room that access body fat in fact makes this virus so much deadlier and so much more dangerous yeah its a good point osama and i think as doc says we obviously have to be very sensitive in the way that we discuss these particular issues ive treated tens of thousands of patients and manage many people on the street with all the sex and too many people with weight issues and not once have i ever had somebody complaining about i phrased it but it has to be done in a sense to way because you know ultimately theres such a huge proportion of the population 70 brits and most of people on our way to repeat. Extend the population so i think initially approached this sensitive way unfortunately i think you raise a grave on point there are certain sections certainly within the media and people who think this is a custom responsibility issue and when they see somebody who is overweight or obese they suddenly automatically come up with the fact they must be greedy overeating any must be you know lazy and i think that thats absolutely wrong that we shouldnt be doing that because it isnt really a post response but ceased well i think part of the difficulty separating the psychology of obesity and the physiology of it people are rightfully opposed to fat shaming and other forms of myth mistreatment but they often miss the point that obesity is a serious disease of the adipose tissue and adipose tissue is a vital organ immune organ as well as and the criminal organ so with any other progressing pathological condition he wouldnt be encouraging people to just accept themselves a lot of themselves the way there are and yet when it comes to obesity that seems to be the message. And also you do raise an important point and i agree with you in the sense that we cant ignore it and but its about how we approach these patients so theres no evidence for example that if you actually shame people and you know you come down very strict on them and stop saying you know that you know making them feel bad about themselves that is unlikely and so you know in my experience you know its unlikely to really help and it certainly can actually impair and you know be a barrier to good docs of patient relationships and the one i would try to trace and wouldnt do that but when people say that its not a personal responsibility what i hear as a formal happiest person is that you can do nothing about it when in fact i know for a fact that there is a lot of things that people can do you know about it and change that probably mean theyre relatively short amount of time so lets talk about this responsibility i think when we talk about it we need to be able to define and to define press responsibility to do it you know for people to act with pessimist sponsibility you need to have the right information you need to have choice you need to have access and it comes to food needs to be affordable if you havent got the right information oxana say for example you know we can talk about and im going to one place the dietary guidelines say that people are being misled by for example the low fat movement for very long you know people eating foods same thing it was good for the health think it was going to help in this way it was loaded with sugar it was interfering with appetite or eating more they feel hungry to them playing themselves and actually the blame lies in what they receive in the way that misinformed we cant really say that because of press responsibility in the student farm were not so its well the point is its so saturated with ultra process you know the analogy i use is like asking a child that grows up in a sweet shop to not eat sweets we need to you know we need to help people so that they can empower themselves to try and change or die in the right way but i think we should always constantly be aware how one of the. Thats why for example diets and general dont work away all starts for many most people some people of the calorie restriction all that kind of stuff and one of the possible reasons from my perspective is you can do this for so much time this will cower sure you can excise well but if the environment is working against you its harder to sustain and people benefit. The environment is always working against you on any issue i want to give you one example i was just at a coffee shop yesterday and there was this overweight guy who was telling off their clients when not wearing a mask in public but while buying a bunch of act layers and i think this is such a poignant illustration of whats wrong with this whole debate because he felt protected and even selfrighteous by the fact that wearing a mask without even understanding or willing to admit to himself that his own food choices have a much more dangerous impact on his chances of getting and surviving the this virus is just to the point that. I read that information and that you know would environment the war and how full it environment would have heard but at the end of the day the decision lies ahead then within an individual us on if it comes at some very basic if you look at behavioral science the environment has a much bigger impact so yes of course we make our choices but the environment is much bigger impact on how we behave than this local custom responsibility aspects of it and thats very well known well ive been a sight cynical to some cretins how think that paired with shows making the difficult choice a healthy choice will have a much bigger impact on the population than socalled individual counseling or education so thats one thing i would say i think the other thing is we have to also be a way out son and this is something that doesnt get discussed enough is it for certain sections society who got job insecurity who have very low paid jobs actually having a healthy diet is is almost unavoidable you know children who are growing up in environments where their parents cant even afford them to get healthy food and they have some to growth or they develop conditions related to obesity so me thats just plain wrong thats a gross injustice so we have to think about that as well in this context the other thing id like to raise with you as well is you know you talk about this issue of office responsibly. The information that people have been given for a long time lets talk about the dietary guidelines that changed in the late seventys and early eightys and us in the u. K. Was all about putting you know the base of the diet starchy foods and we now know these are the very food that contributes to all these Metabolic Diseases type 2 diabetes etc so people get confused and that thats another big issue the Food Industry have kind of hijacked information and weve you know this whole culture presents low fat junk food has come on the you know common saturate this environment people have gotten sick and that also needs to change but the problem is the the Food Industry have too much control so that even the dives the guidelines are in foods. I want to ask you something about this mask growing controversy that i mentioned because i find it very interesting i think at the heart of it is ultimately a debate about you know how much courage to see how much discipline the way expect from one another in dealing with a major disease and i see obesity and Metabolic Health and they much the same context its ultimately as far as im concerned about how much youre willing to put upon himself or do yourself in order to protect your own health and the health of the people around you because we know im sure you would agree with me that obesity cons at a huge huge huge cost of the society is it an appropriate comparison. And i agree i think thats a really important point around the fact that you know were all interconnected it was so i mean we know that you know viruses can travel around the world within the space of days 2 weeks you know us and so in fact saying that so many people from all different backgrounds right so were all interconnected in the same way youre absolutely right you know we also have to think about you know for me for example with with my work my advocacy i always think about how can i always love my how i help me to visualization how do i help the population i think about. Because really its an exit and actually its you know and ive got a little bit philosophical here but you know for a society to function effectively for people to be you know if you have a good quality of life to have good health to be happy where we are dependent on each other you know week we cant really i dont think you can ask people who people can live in to kuhns and there are some people are extremely happy to be connected to completely isolated from the rest of society not just the stuff doesnt happen so i think the point youre raising and i which i gree ways is that we have to pull the good of the community for everybody we have to think about the way we act and whether its about where you masts and falling back guidance or about reducing the date of the city but that means its also. Oh responsibility to look at the roots and thats what you that means speaking out against Health Misinformation speaking out against the corruption of science you know one of the things i say in the beginning my talks and thats because misinformation house has become so widespread you know all these docs can no longer practice on this medicine you know we have an epidemic of misinformed oxes misinformed patients interested in so many issues whys that i think he actually put it in even starker terms he has said that more than medicine is a major threat to public how thats a pretty strong statement but lets discuss it after a very short break you have to take a minute if you have right now but well be back in just a few moments. The sudden halt and illegal takeover of a government by a small group. Rather than revolutionaries or soldiers conduct small group the operation when you have a tiny drip of people who have all the power you have to have some means to make sure the rest of us dont get together and talk about. These are sacrificing. Places that capitalism exploited and destroyed for profit and left behind misery poverty environmental devastation and so you see things like Voter Suppression building more prisons you seem gerrymandering all sorts of undemocratic practices are well in that world are well into. Question the. Welcome back to well the party best thing off the track 10000 cardiologist and best selling author dr mahathir just before the break we were talking about how one of madison has become a major threat to Public Health and im sure its gonna i mean sound doctors are some nurses working double shifts in cover if hospitals will take that as a as an offense could he actually reconcile both of these statements our clinicians being heroes who are putting their lives on the line but also serving a system that doesnt have the bath interest of patients at heart yeah its a its a very its an interesting one to reconcile so the way i would start off 1st looks on is i think what medicine is achieved many great savings but most of what we do which is the really good stuff in modern medicine to see if you can the emergency treatments that treating people with trauma treating life threatening infections with answered audix treating heart attacks with emergency hot stenting for example something i did for a lot of my career but the big issue in health care now is a management chronic diseases and the management of chronic disease is a 1st and foremost primary focus our intervention is drugs and when you look at the data on those drugs im im talking about drugs you know Blood Pressure from my cholesterol pills im talking about drugs for diabetes you know for the overwhelming majority of these patients being treated it doesnt give them any benefit whatsoever and they come with side effects at the same time with detracting from giving them. Prescribed lifestyle advice so thats where the imbalance is but just to put in perspective for you of us the issue around the pharmaceutical industry influence over guidelines and drug prescribing practices as big. Im such a big issue that one of the cofounders of the very eminent respectable craig collaboration pizza goetia his own estimates suggest that the 3rd most screen cause of death after Heart Disease and cancer now is prescribed medications what you will prescribe and what you doctor prescribe sphere and he actually gets about 50 percent of that digges medication errors and about 50 percent. Side effects can i ask you something about Metabolic Diseases that i could never understand. We are usually taught that this is something that you have for your entire lifetime and yet we know it now for a fact that thats a type 2 diabetes hypertension inflammation a 2nd out immune disease all of that is reversible and reversible in a relatively short amount of time why isnt medicine maintaining this long term view off the disease when its taken from a false and when they actually have the tools to and very cheap tools to give to that patients to you know improve their health in a matter of weeks and months at most. Ill give you one word answer and then ill expand on it money. I interviewed the former. Of one of the most british guys Impact Medical terms of world medicine masi angel and i wrote about this in a guardian article and she said to me the real battle we have in health care oksana is one of truth versus money so you know basically whats happening is the science is there but that isnt enough you know we have to overcome these nested interests that have got a grip over modern medicine the reality is also i can tell you hand on heart the overwhelming majority of doctors go into the profession to do the right thing by their patients they want to help their patients get better but they are being said information which they do not realize is heavily by state in corrupted by the industry and until we change the system at its root it will carry on as it is part of the issue around what why were not weve got this sounds wrong is also lack of knowledge about lifestyle stuff so for example i didnt get to know anything about basic nutrition and how it impacts the Metabolic Diseases medical school but that was almost 20 years ago and of course the signs of all the diseases have become more prevalent and now were now realizing with you know small studies lets be honest that you can reverse many of these medical disease but if you weeks i see it with my patients and i think that is going to gather momentum it has to governments and because what weve doing isnt not just working is causing huge damage to Public Health absolutely and i think the doctors and the nurse of their home you mentioned sometimes the price make timbs of that you relative recently that i think more than half away and they cast as staff are overweight and these people are now over exerting themselves and missing out on sleep theyre working double shifts theyre probably eating the junk food that has still and that is still being served in british hospitals and im sure in other countries this is jason is not much different its almost. Like you know in the system is a king its own heroes 1st and foremost yeah absolutely so more than 50 percent your right of doctors and nurses in the n. H. S. Are either overweight or obese and that really comes back to the point about the 1st responsibility issue because you would expect them to be the most educated and be aware of it ok of i the not educated probably more important is the socalled hostile creative arm in the you know its similar if not worse than the high street 75 percent of food coaches in hospitals is considered ultra process or health state so its not a surprise looks on unfortunately and that also goes again theres an element of lack of knowledge because people have been so this information its about counting calories its about you know and its a balance its about you know it doesnt matter what you eat as long as you exercise enough and some of these people who are overweight a sadly unfortunately i think blaming themselves thinking its because theyre not doing enough exercise when all they need to do is actually just change the what they eat in fact you know im very much center of the frets i said what about say thoughts of detract from the benefits of the lord even look or who is former Shadow Health minister when market sasha was Prime Minister and you know he actually said something which i wrote in my i quoted in my last book he says an obese custom doesnt need to do one iota of exercise in order to lose weight they j