Below is a fascinating article about the poor longevity track record of famous health 'experts' and diet 'gurus'. From what I have been able to gather by Googling around, the article was penned in 2000 by John MacGregor, a fellow Aussie.
MacGregor wrote the piece as the first of a series for a local newspaper (I haven't been able to ascertain which paper, or if it was in fact ever published).
It's worth noting the article was written a few years before the controversy-filled passing of low-carbohydrate author Dr. Robert Atkins, one of the most famous diet 'gurus' in history. Atkins, as many of you will remember, died after slipping on an icy New York footpath. He spent nine days in a coma before dying on April 17, 2003 aged 72. A year earlier, Atkins had suffered cardiac arrest due to cardiomyopathy, which he reportedly developed after a viral infection in 2000.
Other recent developments include:
- The heart attack death of K. Dun Gifford, who promoted the Mediterranean diet, at 71;
- Michio Kushi, macrobiotic advocate and author of The Cancer Prevention Diet, suffering colon cancer at 81. He is still alive, but his wife died of cervical cancer at 78.
- The death of Roy Walford in 2004 at age 79. The longevity researcher and author died of respiratory failure as a complication of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease). Walford's books included Maximum Life Span and The 120-Year Diet.
- The death of Robert E. Kowalski from a pulmonary aneurysm in 2007, aged 65. Kowalski wrote several best-selling books, including The 8-Week Cholesterol Cure, The 8-Week Cholesterol Cure Cookbook, Cholesterol & Children, 8 Steps to a Healthy Heart (a guide to recovery from heart attack and bypass surgery), The Type II Diabetes Diet Book, and The Blood Pressure Cure: 8 Weeks to Lower Blood Pressure Without Prescription Drugs. Kowalski developed his programs after enduring a major heart attack and multiple-bypass surgery at age 35.
Enjoy the article - and please don't ever refer to me as a "diet guru"; "Anthony" works just fine.
And before I get any hate emails from blindly loyal followers of the figures mentioned in this article, let me make it perfectly clear the purpose of this post is not to ridicule; instead, it is to remind people that celebrity diet and health 'gurus' are fallible human beings just like the rest of us. Their exalted status is usually the result, not of superior knowledge, but clever promotion, timely PR and the eternal gullibility of folks looking for the next 'hot' diet and health strategy.
People should really have a good, long, hard think about their tendency to sheepishly worship diet 'experts'. Someone might have a great publicity agent, a supportive publisher that knows a great gimmick when they see one, a good relationship with journalists and be a darling of the media, but that's no guarantee they know what they're talking about.
As for why diet and health gurus tend to be riddled with poor health and premature mortality, my suspicion is that many of these folks (and their followers) get so caught up in whatever novel angle they are pushing (carbohydrate restriction, fat restriction, permanent calorie restriction, high-dose supplements, juice fasting, etc, etc) that they lose sight of the bigger picture.
And the bigger picture, judging by the habits of long lived societies, is a diet and lifestyle that encompasses predominantly nutrient-rich whole foods, avoidance of both caloric overconsumption and underconsumption (the former leads to obesity and chronic disease, the latter results in malnutrition), and a lifestyle marked by temperance, regular physical activity, sufficient sound sleep, a supportive social circle, low stress and/or superior stress coping mechanisms.
I've known several barely English-literate elderly Italians who lived well into their 90s and beyond. None of them ever wrote a diet book; heck, none of them would have had a clue what terms like 'ketosis' or 'macrobiotic' meant. They regularly ate bread and pasta (made from white flour) - and lived a lot longer than Dr. Robert Atkins. They also regularly cooked with olive oil, butter and lard - and outlived vocal low-fat author Nathan Pritikin by decades. They did so because they lived their life largely in accordance with the requirements I described earlier. Focusing on one or two novel health factors while ignoring the rest of the aforementioned critical requirements is a sure-fire recipe for ill health and shortened lifespan.
It is also apparent that some of these 'experts' had deluded themselves into believing their brand of diet or health gimmick excused their other lifestyle indiscretions (I've personally met more than a few people like this). Let that be a warning to you; if you think that eating low-carb negates the need for regular exercise, or that taking high dose supplements allows you to smoke, drink, and party hardy til the wee hours, or that your visits to the gym negate the effects of a junk diet, chances are one day you'll receive a very rude shock.
Health 'Experts' and Longevity Article
by John MacGregor
Dr Paavo Airola was once the best-known health expert in the United States. His books were international best-sellers. In 1983 Dr Airola offered to publish a health book I had written in the US.
We corresponded to this end for some time. But then he stopped writing. Weeks went by, then months. Eventually I assumed that Dr Airola had got cold feet.
Little did I realise how cold. Ultimately a letter arrived from his office.
America's most acclaimed longevity specialist - author of How To Get Well and How to Keep Slim, Healthy and Young With Juice Fasting - had died of a stroke at 64. This was more than a decade short of 74.5, the average age of male mortality.
Paavo Airola had opened the batting for an epidemic of premature death among longevity experts.
Next cab off the rank, in 1985, was Nathan Pritikin - who suicided as leukemia overtook him, at 69. Australian health writer Ross Horne, a friend of Pritikin's, says he would have lived years longer had he only embraced 'Man's natural diet', fruitarianism.
T.C. Fry - leader of the Natural Hygiene movement in the US - did exactly this, when ill-health hit him in his late sixties. He even died a fruitarian: at the age of 70, of a pulmonary embolism.
Longevity experts seem to expire earlier than everyone except rock stars - who leave us, according to a recent US survey, on average at 36.9 years.
But rock stars can have dangerous lifestyles. (Of the 317 surveyed, 40 died of drug overdose, 36 suicided, 22 died in plane accidents, and 18 were murdered.) Longevity experts should have no such excuse.
So how to explain this epidemic? Was exercise the missing ingredient? Probably not: most of these people at least walked a lot. Paavo Airola was a jogger.
So, too, was Jim Fixx. Indeed Fixx founded the jogging cult in the USA, with his 1977 Complete Book of Running. One chapter is a scorching repudiation of a Playboy article titled Jogging Can Kill You.
In 1984 Jim Fixx was felled by a heart attack as he jogged through the streets near his home. He was 52.
Should Fixx have read up on the world famous brothers, Drs William and Evan Shute, who proclaimed that heart disease could be prevented with Vitamin E?
Maybe not. In 1981, whilst continuing to lecture on the prevention of heart disease with Vitamin E, Dr William Shute developed heart disease, and died after a bypass operation. Dr Evan Shute pre-deceased him by a short period.
The author JI Rodale - founder of Prevention magazine - had a more comprehensive answer to the problem of heart disease, and other illnesses. He preached a spectrum of minerals and vitamins, and an organic diet. I asked American raw food writer Bob Avery how Rodale's story ended:
"He died of a heart attack during taping of the Dick Cavett TV talk show, shortly after he had completed his interview. He was 72. During the interview he stated his intention to live to 100. The talk show host thought he had dozed off in his chair."
George Ohsawa, inventor of Macrobiotics ("the way of long life") had a more comprehensive approach still: embodying spiritual as well as nutritional values. He expired of lung cancer at 73.
Adelle Davis sold ten million copies of Let's Eat Right and a string of other best-sellers through the 1960s and 1970s. Davis came from the 'high protein' generation which preceded today's high carbohydrate orthodoxy. She used to say she had never seen anyone die of cancer who drank a quart of milk a day, as she did.
Adelle Davis died of cancer in 1974, aged 70. The average age of female mortality is 81.
A serious high protein aficionado was author Vilhjalmur Stephansson, who ate an all-meat diet. He developed serious cardiovascular disease [Anthony's note: Stephansson died of a stroke at 82].
Britain's Sir Francis Chichester, lone sailor and fitness book author, died of spinal cancer in 1972, aged 70. American health author Dr Stuart Berger, who advocated vitamins, minerals and exercise, died of a heart attack at 40.
A few longevity experts did live long lives. (Paul Bragg, 95. Dr Norman Walker, 108-117, depending on whom you believe). [Anthony's note: Bragg's true birth date is controversial, while several Internet sources cite Walker's true age of passing as 99] But most did not even make the average for their gender - let alone the ton. And most made large amounts of money from telling us how to prolong our lives.
So what killed them? Perhaps the high-carbohydrate diet helped dispatch some. (As we shall see next week, this orthodoxy is now coming into question). Others, like Paavo Airola, had health traumas early in life. But that's not an excuse for the pattern. (The SAD eaters whose deaths make up the averages were exposed to a comparable range of stresses.)
And there were, of course, those who just did not follow their own rules.
I asked veteran American health writer Ric Lambart about Adelle Davis:
"She simply led a very self-destructive life. She did some of the very same things she urged others not to do: smoke and drink... In fact, when I first met her, it was Paavo who introduced us, and he had to locate her in a busy hotel - so he went right to the bar, where she was engaged nurturing a drink that was clearly not some sort of fruit drink."
Ric also had something to say about that least considered factor contributing to early death: chronic stress. Herbert Shelton - the first doyen (before TC Fry) of the Natural Hygiene movement in the US - was perennially hounded by the medical establishment. Shelton "...never got out from behind the "eight ball," stress-wise... He was constantly overworked and engaged in extreme legal warfare. The medical establishment over here did all they could at every turn to put him out of business and in prison."
But there was also the fact that Shelton "apparently did not consume a natural diet himself."
Ric Lambart also knew TC Fry:
"Terry Fry...was under unrelenting stress and never got out of one legal battle or confrontation before he was engaged in a new one. He spread much good information, though, so should be considered as one of those who contributed some good gospel to the Alternative Health field. He burned his candle at both ends, so, almost predictably, passed away prematurely."
Most of the above pundits condemned 'crackpot' and 'fad' diets (that is, diets other than their own). To be fair, some of them undoubtedly contributed a piece or two to the slow-forming jigsaw of health. (Even getting people to think about nutrition in the 1950s and 1960s was an achievement.)
Collectively, however, their premature exits cast a humbling shadow over our present certainties. Are dietary principles as transient as those of (say) political correctness?
Perhaps these mournful departures should make us more modest in our assessment of our own understanding. And less fevered in our judgement of those who differ from us.
In the coming weeks we'll look at a range of exciting new ideas in health. Hopefully they will give you some 'Eureka moments', as they did me.
But it would be good to remember that no-one has a monopoly on knowledge. Many who have have thought themselves to be on the one true path have found out otherwise in their final hours.
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Anthony Colpo is a distinctly non-guruish independent researcher, physical conditioning specialist, and author of the groundbreaking books The Fat Loss Bible and The Great Cholesterol Con.
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