Molly Clawson

Prof. Hamilton

ENGL 137H SEC 004

November 9, 2021

Audience: Americans with health conditions living in Perkiomenville, PA.

We’re Not Gonna Take It

As of 2011, an estimated 34% of adults and 15-20% of children and teens in the United

States are obese as the national life expectancy continues to decline (Devitt; Mitchell et al.).

Observations of this increasingly obese America date to the 1970s, yet the United States

remains unable to counteract this trend (Mitchell et al.). Despite the prescription of countless

medications to treat Americans’ increasingly common health conditions, American health

continues to decline. Accordingly, many ill Americans look for alternative treatments to what

Big Pharma continuously peddles. One of these alternatives is alleviating health conditions

through a low-carbohydrate diet. Although demeaned and discredited by the media and the

pharmaceutical industry as a dangerous “fad diet” with no scientifically proven benefits,

there is an ever-increasing body of accredited scientific research proving the contrary.

Despite the slanderous efforts by the stakeholders benefitting from the old paradigm,

countless Americans experimented with low-carb diets to improve their health and

experience the benefits firsthand. Americans’ distrust in the medical system due to medical

corruption and doctors’ inattention to current research is largely responsible for the paradigm

shift from the infamous processed American diet to a low-carb diet.

If I Could Turn Back Time

World War II brought with it an age of technological innovation as commercially canned

food and kitchen appliances, such as the refrigerator-fresher and dish washer, became staples in

American households (“How Highly Processed Foods Liberated 1950s Housewives”). The

marketing for these products emphasized the lack of fulfillment in being a housewife,

characterizing these processed foods as an avenue for women’s liberation from the house as the

time saved from cooking could be spent taking on part-time jobs (“How Highly Processed Foods

Liberated 1950s Housewives”). This marketing dramatically altered American culture as the

American diet became the infamous highly processed, fast-food riddled diet recognized today. A

2016 study found that 60% of the calories consumed in the modern American diet comes from

processed food (“How Highly Processed Foods Liberated 1950s Housewives”). Since the

processed food industry advertised how a more processed diet saves individual Americans

valuable time, these campaigns successfully exploited the need of many Americans to dedicate

this additional time to pursuing their multiple sources of income. The majority of Perkiomen

Township is living at or below the US poverty line (US Census Bureau). Processed good

corporations exploit the socioeconomic status of both Perkiomen residents and all Americans by

emphasizing that purchasing processed food provides greater time to provide for one’s family

and by selling these products cheap. To switch to a low-fat diet, which was once perceived as a

healthy diet, Americans could expect to pay more than $550 per year in additional food cost per

person (“The Price Difference between Healthy Food & Fast Food”). Additionally, the few who

managed to scrape by and invest this money to avoid the more expensive healthcare costs reaped

no true benefits as this “healthy diet” isn’t truly a way to be healthier.

 As obesity became a national health concern only two decades after this switch to processed

food, the very corporations causing this issue seized the opportunity to profit off “fad diets” in

the increasingly lucrative weight-loss market. After noticing the weight loss of himself and 65 of

his colleagues through a low-carb diet, Dr. Atkins published his findings in his 1972 book, Dr.

Atkins’ Diet Revolution (“Atkins Diet History and Background | Atkins”). In doing so, a low-

carb diet was written off with all the other “fad diets” trying to sell people exclusive weight-loss

tips for the low, low price of $7.99. Bias from this initial mention of a low-carb diet continues to

this day, even as countless accredited physicians publish their research on the health benefits

beyond weight loss.

In 1998, Dr. Eric Westman, a board-certified physician in obesity and internal medicine,

started studying the benefits of a low-carb diet, and began publishing his papers questioning if

the medical community should really be treating carbohydrates as the nutritional messiah (“Eric

Charles Westman, MD | Medicine.duke.edu”). While Dr. Westman, now an Associate Professor

of Medicine at Duke University, shared with the public how obese adults benefited from a low-

carb diet, neuroendocrinologist Dr. Robert Lustig was arriving at a similar conclusion for obese

children ((“About | Robert Lustig Website”; “Eric Charles Westman, MD | Medicine.duke.edu”).

Prior to accepting his position as a Professor of Endocrinology at the University of California,

San Francisco in 2001, Dr. Lustig worked at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, and oversaw

the endocrine care of children with Central Nervous System damage from their fight against

cancer (“About | Robert Lustig Website”). Many of these cancer survivors became severely

obese, and through the course of his study, Dr. Lustig found the solution to be a low-carb diet

(“About | Robert Lustig Website”). Despite the immense bias towards a low-carb diet, Dr.
Westman and Dr. Lustig both adamantly vocalized their findings, making them key voices in

support of the shift towards a low-carb diet.

Wo! I Feel Good

Since Dr. Westman and Dr. Lustig’s pioneering work, there’s an ever-increasing body of

research on the various health benefits of a low-carb diet. Since then, a low-carb diet has been

found to manage the symptoms of patients with IBD (Cox et al.). It’s also reduced the attack

frequency and intensity of migraine attacks, even causing the all-together disappearance of

migraines, in patients with migraine prophylaxis (Barbanti et al.). Furthermore, a low-carb diet is

now a recognized treatment for children with medically refractory epilepsy and causes

improvement in autistic children (Evangeliou et al.; Martin et al.). A low-carb diet alone was also

found to reduce tumor mass and slow cancer growth in cancer patients, and coupled with fasting,

this dietary change made resistant cancer fatally sensitive to chemotherapy (“Significance of

Low-Carbohydrate Diets and Fasting in Patients with Cancer”). While these findings are

phenomenal, further promising research is currently being conducted on the diet’s potential

benefits for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s patients. It’s fantastic that scientists are now studying

the low-carb diet more extensively, but the paradigm shift towards a low-carb diet is more

influenced by public accessibility of this groundbreaking research.

Because of the existence of countless free research databases, like that of the National

Library of Medicine, the American public has nearly unlimited access to the new research

published in accredited peer-review journals. Consequently, more Americans can educate

themselves not only on their individual health concerns, but also on the various alternatives for

the current, ineffective treatments. With such a wealth of knowledge at people’s fingertips,

Americans nationwide began individually experimenting with the dietary change, soon
discovering that the boasted benefits were in fact true. Quickly, online groups emerged as these

individuals shared their stories and swapped recipes with other low-carb eaters. As everyday

Americans flocked to these communities, several doctors did as well. Yet, these communities

persist beyond the computer screen. As research on a low-carb diet became trendy, medical

conferences and conventions, such as KetoCon in Austin, Texas, were an increasingly popular

phenomenon. Wanting a piece of the action, keto and low-carb cookbooks flooded the market.

Countless magazines trying to churn a buck, like Women’s World, began advertising “Budget

Keto” and “Keto Off 11 Lbs in 5 Days” on their covers. Although the internet and word of

mouth aided the paradigm shift towards a low-carb diet, the primary cause of this shift is

Americans’ profound distrust in the medical system.

I Play My Part and You Play Your Game

Instances of unethicality and corruption plague the history of American medicine,

naturally dissuading Americans from placing their trust in the healthcare system. An infamous

example is the Tuskegee experiments, in which 399 Black men with syphilis weren’t given the

widely available penicillin antibiotic so researchers could observe the natural progression of

syphilis within the human body (CDC). After the Tuskegee experiments and similarly repugnant

stories in medical research, medical providers gave Americans a reason to hesitate in trusting the

medical community. This hesitance turned to utter distrust of the medical system as the tobacco

industry’s smear campaigns effectively fanned the flames in the 1950s to discredit the research

linking smoking to the dramatic rise in lung cancer (Brandt). This distrust persists to this day as

anyone in a relationship knows, once trust is lost, it takes even longer to gain it back. This is

demonstrated by a recent study which claims that 20%-80% of respondents reported distrust in

the health care system (Armstrong et al.). A current example of this continued distrust is the
national prevalence of vaccine hesitancy in wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Americans clearly

feel they can’t trust medical experts’ word that the novel, experimental COVID-19 vaccines

aren’t simply another bait and switch. Healthcare providers are becoming increasingly enraged

and dismissive towards Americans’ concerns, believing that their reputations and years of

education deem them worthy of Americans’ immediate trust and respect. However, after being

stabbed in the back by individuals with similar qualifications, Americans are more discerning

about who they put their faith into. Although this broad distrust of the healthcare system partially

fueled the paradigm shift towards a low-carb diet, it’s Americans’ particular distrust of the

corrupt US Dietary Guidelines, which are considered the medical holy text, that propagates this

paradigm shift.

Taking a page from the tobacco industry’s book, in the 1960s, the sugar industry sought

to downplay the risks of sugar for heart disease and instead blame fat as the scapegoat. An

industry group called the Sugar Research Foundation sponsored research by Harvard Scientists

in 1967 claiming that fat, not sugar, was the sole cause of the declining American health (Kearns

et al.). From that study emerged the commonplace that low-fat and fat-free foods are healthier,

even though the processed food industry simply replaces the fat with sugar. In this villainization

of fat, the processed food industry made a killing as Americans became addicted to their sugar-

laced diet (Bray; Olszewski et al.). To this day, the US Dietary Guidelines still recommend low-

fat intake despite the dubious nature of the initial study. Furthermore, the processed food

lobbyists continue to have their tentacles in the US Dietary Guidelines as any suggestions of the

medical advisory panel which go against the processed food industry’s bottom line are omitted

from the final guidelines (“How Do Lobbying Groups Affect American Dietary Guidelines”).

Yet despite this blatant corruption, the American medical system continues to pretend as if the
US Dietary Guidelines are scientifically supported and unbiased. To this day, medical experts

still prescribe Statins to patients with heart disease to reduce their LDL levels, even though

cholesterol and fat aren’t the true culprits (Ravnskov et al.). This indoctrination of physicians

doesn’t encourage Americans to trust their healthcare providers. Instead, Americans justifiably

feel they can’t rely on their physicians for sound medical advice, leading them to seek out their

own understanding by reading the mountains of accredited research published online.

Furthermore, instead of encouraging educated discussions and their patients to inform

themselves on their health conditions, healthcare providers disrespect these efforts, likening it to

diagnosing oneself with cancer using WebMD. This dismissive attitude towards individual

patients’ concerns continues to spread this continued distrust of the medical system.

Additionally, by not keeping up with current research, when patients bring up these new

treatment options, such as a low-carb diet, and doctors shoot down these possibilities with

outdated studies, Americans have no reason to feel their healthcare providers are bringing

anything to the table to actually improve their declining health. With such immense distrust in

the medical system, Americans have no qualms about taking things in their own hands and

experimenting with alternative treatment plans. Although their physicians may dissuade them

from doing so, patients’ utter lack of respect and trust in their doctors after years of continued

health decline compels individual Americans to try out a low-carb diet in search of health

improvement. As such, Americans’ distrust in the healthcare system is the primary driver behind

the paradigm shift from the processed American diet to the low-carb diet.

In the case of the shift towards a low-carb diet, American distrust in the medical system

propagated a beneficial paradigm shift. Ill Americans have no faith in the doctors who continue

to keep them on the same tired treatment plan even after all progress stalled years ago. This
distrust on the personal level coupled with the distrust of the medical system in general due to its

ugly history littered with corruption spurred these increasingly sick Americans to seek out their

own solutions by tapping into the wealth of scientific research available on the internet, thereby

spreading the shift towards a low-carb diet. However, although this distrust incited a positive

paradigm shift, it has just as much potential to cause far greater negative outcomes. Doctors and

healthcare providers must actively sow greater trust and nurture stronger relationships with their

patients by staying in the know to provide their patients with the best treatment options available.

By showing they genuinely care about improving their patients’ health, healthcare professionals

can slowly earn back Americans’ trust. Furthermore, in doing so, medical professionals mustn’t

dismiss and demean patients who desperately scour the internet for alternative treatments simply

because they have no MD at the end of their name. Though patients aren’t always right,

physicians must acknowledge and respect these concerns to indicate they are truly worthy of

Americans’ faith. In doing so, healthcare providers can foster a better, uncorrupted medical

system that patients feel they can bestow their trust upon without their health, and potentially

their lives, falling victim to the greed of the processed food and pharmaceutical industries when

the solution is a simple diet change.

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