Benefits of healthy eating regime
Sir — After reading Dr Ciara Kelly’s article (Living, Sunday Independent, October 9) I think that perhaps she feels irked by healthy eating, as it makes doctors irrelevant.
I’ll give you that healthy living isn’t the answer to everything that ails us, but it’s certainly more successful than the drugs that are pushed daily onto patients, when a simple lifestyle change would solve the issue.
I think she’s really missing the point that most people don’t just wake up one morning and decide to throw out all the misinformation about nutrition that they’ve heard through pyramids, but they find it through trying to solve a health issue.
A health issue that Western medicine has been unable to help with. I struggled with debilitating stomach cramps for 15 years. Conventional doctors did their bit, and after many attempts, shrugged their shoulders and pronounced that I had IBS. Basically, the coverall diagnosis for anyone with unexplained stomach issues, with no useful treatments apart from suppressing symptoms.
I began to take nutrition courses where I learned about the effects that gluten has on the gut. I was not diagnosed with anything, but I tried cutting out gluten. I have not had a stomach pain since, five years on, and have never had more energy.
If Dr Kelly wants to go on about how wheat and grains with gluten have nutrients that I’m now lacking, she’d have difficulty finding any issues with my health as opposed to many my age who take multiple prescriptions per day.
It takes some work, but I eat healthy and am not lacking any nutrients in my diet. On the other hand, someone I know takes 11 pills per day for the usual things such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, thyroid imbalance. Each of these issues are quite easily treated through dietary changes, which has been proven through science.
I’m particularly surprised Dr Kelly would take this stance, given her involvement in Operation Transformation. She must constantly see the effect that dietary changes make to health and I don’t see her comments as helpful.
Western medicine is going to have to wake up! There is a place for doctor intervention but until they can also embrace dietary treatments that work, there will be opposing sides… with unhealthy people in between. Theresa Tierney,
Co Galway