This is the final post for now about the problems with following the so-called “ketogenic” diet. Today I’m addressing some issues I’ve discovered with one of the leading keto gurus, Eric Berg DC. Note that I don’t call him “Dr.” Berg, even though that’s what his YouTube channel, his books, his website and his ads call him. HE IS NOT A MEDICAL DOCTOR. HE’S A CHIROPRACTOR. Sorry. I try to steer clear of all-caps ranting, but sometimes it’s just necessary.
Just a reminder: the “case study” I’m using is that of the blogger who runs the Addicted2Decoraing website. She says in a post titled “The Personal Stuff: A New Furry Family Member, More Keto Info, and What I’m Listening To” that one of her five ways to get started on the ketogenic diet is:
Find one keto expert you like and trust, and stick with him or her.
And the “expert” she’s decided to follow is Eric Berg DC. Now why on earth would you want to “stick with” just one source? That makes no sense. The best way to get a balanced view of any topic is to consult multiple sources, checking out the discrepancies that you find. Then you make your own well-informed decisions. Otherwise you’re just outsourcing your choices. (And, as I’ve said before, I love this blog, follow it faithfully, and totally respect its author. She’s so independent in her decorating choices that I find it very puzzling that she’s willing to blindly follow anyone about her health choices.)
Let me say it again: I’ve spent thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours at various chiropractic clinics. I just now did a quick mental survey and came up with six names of chiropractors by whom I’ve been treated. So I’m not just standing on the sidelines jeering. One of the most charming chiropractors I visited was a man from South America—I think Bolivia—who was an MD in his native country but who had not been able to get his medical license transferred to the US. So . . . he became a chiropractor! Doesn’t that tell you something?
My most recent foray into the chiropractic world came sometime after our move here to the Denver area in 2009. I have chronic neck and shoulder problems caused by congenital scoliosis, exactly the same complaints that my mother had. I noticed that the range of motion in my neck had really diminished; I was having a very hard time just looking over my shoulder as I changed lanes while driving. Since I had been counseled in the past that I needed to keep up with chiropractic care in order to stave off this very deterioration, I decided to get back into treatment. There was a chiropractic office near our new home, so I went there for one of their introductory sessions. What a load of baloney that man showered down upon us! (I’m honestly not sure about his name, and I don’t think he’s at that location any more.) Chiropractic care could cure cancer, I remember him saying. Puh-leeze! I’m still so mad at myself that I didn’t just get up and walk out. But I thought, ‘Hey, I’m not here to get cured of cancer. I just want work on my neck.’ So I signed up for a course of treatment, paying in advance for a certain number of sessions. I’m thankful that my husband nixed the idea of paying for a whole year’s worth in advance.
As I continued to go into his office I became more and more uneasy. The other chiros I’d visited had been pretty low-key on the whole (even if they hadn’t done much for my underlying problems, and even though they sold a lot of supplements). This guy was pushing all sorts of nutty ideas, including the dangers of vaccination. And he was treating little kids, for Heaven’s sake! His patients were being led astray, most definitely. And his “treatments” were laughable, lasting about 30 seconds. I had gotten at least some benefit from treatments at other offices since they’d included some massage techniques; this guy was doing nothing. I have such a horror of confrontation that I struggled with how to end this charade, finally deciding that I’d look online and see if there had been any complaints against him. And lo and behold! He’d had a case lodged against him for the very same claims he was still making! I reported him, wrote a letter to his office ending my treatment, and have never darkened the door of a chiropractor again.
What does all this have to do with Eric Berg? Just this: he’s doing the same sort of thing that this other guy did, making huge claims about his expertise and using those claims to rope in gullible people. I do want to be clear here: You can watch his YouTube videos for free, and of course any material that gets you to cut out added sugars will give you at least some benefit, depending on what else you’re told to do. But he also wants you to buy his products: Amazon carries his books and, more important to his bottom line, his “supplements.” Oh man! I have never, ever seen such an assortment of ridiculously-overpriced thinga-ma-doobies in my life. For example, a bottle of 270 capsules of nutritional yeast from Mr. Berg costs $28.42, so a little over $.11 per pill. (I can’t find how many grams are in each one.) But wait! You’re supposed to take 9 a day. So you’re paying right at $1 a day just for this one item. If you look for plain old nutritional yeast in a bag, a perfectly reasonable item that you can use to sprinkle on your popcorn or your pancakes, you’ll find that Bob’s Red Mill sells it in a 5-ounce bag with an online sale price of $5, so $1/oz. They’re giving a serving size of ¼ cup per serving (which seems like a lot), with 9 servings per bag. You’re therefore paying a little over $.50/serving for this brand, half what the Berg pills cost if you’re equating the serving size of the two. But the two can’t possibly be the same: the B-vitamin counts given on the BRM label are many times higher than those given on Berg’s product. Berg says that other nutritional yeast brands fortify their products with synthetic B vitamins, and the BRM yeast does seem to have added vitamins, but they’re listed under “other ingredients” and so aren’t counted in the nutrition content given. And guess what? Well, you’ll never guess, so I’ll tell you: the Berg pills contain “microcrystalline cellulose.” Wanna know what that is? Wood pulp. In other words, filler. You’re not even getting a full capsule of yeast for your money.
In 2007 Berg’s practice in Alexandria, VA (which he still runs) was cited as follows (reference from a site called Casewatch):
Eric Berg, D.C. operates The Health and Wellness Center in Alexandria, Virginia, has been reprimanded, fined $1,500, and ordered to stop using and promoting Body ResponseTechnique (BRT), Nambudripad’s Allergy Elimination Technique (NAET), Contact Reflex Analysis (CRA), and testing with an Acoustic Cardiograph (ACG). BRT, NAET, and CRA involve bogus muscle tests that supposedly are related to body organs. The ACG is claimed to provide a “readable signature” of heart sounds” that is used to detect imbalances of body chemistry. The alleged problems are then corrected with dietary supplements. The consent agreement (shown below) notes that Berg had made many therapeutic claims that were not supportable by reasonable scientfic or medical evidence. Surveys have found that over 40% of chiropractors have used muscle testing in similar ways, most notably as part of a system called applied kinesiology. (emphasis mine)
Ah yes—the infamous “muscle testing.” (In case you’re wondering, two chiropractors have performed something similar on me, both procedures clearly bogus.) Berg was forced to stop doing that, I guess (although a $1,500 fine doesn’t seem like much), so he went on to bigger and more lucrative things.
Well, I must stop for now. I hope I’ve persuaded you to use your common sense in evaluating so-called experts and not get drawn in to buying their stuff. (That’s the polite word.) I always want to ask people, “Don’t you know how to use Google?” In reality, though, it’s easy to understand what’s going on. After all, I’ve admitted to doing the same thing above. Why didn’t I check out that chiropractor before handing over the first payment? Because . . . I wanted to believe that he could help me. Only after weeks of my going in and seeing with my own eyes the troubling activity there did I pull out. (I’ll just mention here, very briefly, that I also really, really wanted to send a specimen in to a “spit doctor,” as my husband called her, a naturopathist or some such who claimed to be able to diagnose your nutritional deficiencies via a saliva sample. Hey! It was only $150! But then, of course, she’d get you to buy her supplements that would treat those deficiences . . .)
If I ever get a tattoo, I think it’ll read “caveat emptor.”