“What if you could cure all your health problems and lose 10 pounds in just 7 days? That’s an amazing claim, hard to believe for sure, but I have seen this miracle so many times in my practice that even I am starting to believe it!”
Straight away, the words of Dr Mark Hyman, sometime physician to Bill Clinton, talk-show regular and bestselling author, set off alarm bells. He’s promoting an “anti-inflammatory”, “detox” diet. Well, for two decades, I’ve been in the business of writing careful, evidence-based, often hype-busting stories about methods of improving health and treating disease, and I can’t help assuming this will be like every other fad diet destined to crumble in the face of scientific evidence. What if you could cure all your health problems in just 7 days? Yeah, that certainly sounds like a miracle. And I don’t believe in miracles. But the fact is, I could do with one.
Three years ago, I found out I was in the early stages of a chronic, incurable disease. I have followed what advice my specialist could give me, but my test results have only worsened. Without any evidence-based options remaining, I can only sit back and wait until I become reliant first on a daily pill and then on an injectable drug, while my risks of developing a host of other diseases, including various cancers, soar.