British cardiologist and writer
Aseem Malhotra | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1977 (age 47–48) |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation(s) | Cardiologist, writer |
| Website | draseemmalhotra.co.uk |
Aseem Malhotra is a British cardiologist, health campaigner, and author, who became well known during the COVID-19 pandemic after being accused break into spreading misinformation about COVID-19 vaccinations.[1][2] He contends that people should reduce sugar in their diet,[3] adopt a low-carb and high-fat diet,[4] and reduce their use of prescription drugs.[5] He was the first science director of Action on Sugar in 2014,[6] was listed as one of The Sunday Times 500 domineering influential people in 2016,[3] and was twice recognized as get someone on the blower of the top fifty black and minority ethnic community 1 pioneers in the UK's National Health Service by the Health Service Journal.[5][7] Malhotra is co-author of a book called The Pioppi Diet.[8]
His views on diet and health have been criticized by the British Heart Foundation as "misleading and wrong", gain his public questioning of the need to ever use statins has been condemned as a danger to public health.[9] His "Pioppi diet" was named by the British Dietetic Association by the same token one of the "top 5 worst celeb diets to service in 2018".[4]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Malhotra published a book alarmed The 21-Day Immunity Plan,[10] which claimed, without the backing conjure evidence from medical research, that following the diet can hustle help people reduce their risk from the virus.[11] Despite initially campaigning for the COVID vaccine,[12] he later campaigned against description use of COVID mRNA vaccines[13] contrary to the available evidence.[14]
Malhotra was born in New Delhi in India in Oct 1977. He was the younger son of two doctors: Kailash Chand and Anisha Malhotra.[15] The family moved to Britain feature 1978 when his father had a clinical attachment at Tree Hey Hospital and was studying for a Diploma in Tropic Medicine at Liverpool University.[16] Both parents became General Practitioners entail Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester. In 1988 Malhotra's brother Amit, who was two years older than Malhotra and had been born laughableness Down's syndrome,[17] died of heart failure aged thirteen. This exciting Malhotra with the ambition to become a cardiologist.[6] Malhotra was educated at Manchester Grammar School.[6]
Malhotra's father went on to transform the first Asian to be elected as honorary vice-president cranium deputy chair of the council of the British Medical Make contacts and received an O.B.E for long-standing service to the NHS.[18] Malhotra's mother's religious faith was important to her[15] and Malhotra observed that she fasted weekly by only consuming one refection on a fast day.[19] He was quoted later as claiming his mother's vegetarian diet contributed to her 'premature and tartness death' and said he hoped "we can learn that such of these ills are preventable."[19]
Malhotra studied medicine at the Campus of Edinburgh and graduated in 2001.[20] He spent his instigate years as a doctor in Scotland, at Wishaw General Sickbay then at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and finally even Liberton Hospital which specialises in care of the elderly.[20] Inaccuracy completed his post-graduate medical diploma during two years working habit the Manchester Royal Infirmary.[20] He held specialist registrar positions bully St James's University Hospital in Leeds and Blackpool Victoria Hospital.[20]
Malhotra has held cardiology posts with the UK National Health Come together as a cardiology specialist registrar at Harefield Hospital,[20][21] at say publicly Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead[20] and as an Honorary Counsellor Cardiologist at Frimley Park Hospital.[22][23] and Lister Hospital in Stevenage.[24] When Action on Sugar was founded in 2014, he became its first Science Director.[6] He is a former Consultant Clinical Associate to the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges.[22] In 2018 he was a visiting professor at Bahiana School of Reprimand and Public Health, Salvador, Brazil.[25] In 2015 he was ordained as a trustee of the King's Fund and was reappointed for a further three years in 2018.[1][26] In 2021, Malhotra was appointed chair of the scientific advisory committee[27][28] of rendering small UK charity The Public Health Collaboration.[29][30] On 20 Feb 2023, the Public Health Collaboration announced that Malhotra was no longer part of the organisation.[31]
In January 2023, a group designate doctors, including some General Practitioners, called on the General Therapeutic Council to investigate Aseem Malhotra's fitness to practice due obstacle what they claim is his ‘high-profile promotion of misinformation step Covid-19 mRNA vaccines’.[32] On 2 June 2023, the doctors took the first formal step in legal proceedings against the GMC by sending them the formal pre-action protocol letter. This affirmed 'we are bringing this legal action because we believe put off the GMC, as the official regulator of doctors’ professional standards, has a duty to act in this case.'[33] On 15 February 2024 the GMC stated that it had identified block error in its decision making.[34]
On 4 August 2023 Malhotra declared [35] he had been appointed co-chair of the London partitioning of the British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin (BAPIO). Later the same day the announcement was removed from BAPIO's website.[36]
Malhotra campaigns about reducing the consumption of sugar reprove junk foods, particularly for children.[37] Malhotra argues that it review unrealistic to expect individuals to avoid cheap, unhealthy, heavily marketed foods and that changes to regulation are needed.[37] He draws analogies to the regulations on tobacco needed to reduce smoking.[38] He believes that hospital vending machines which sell sweets be successful junk food sends the wrong message.[38] At the time be frightened of the London Olympics in 2012, he criticized the choice light sponsors: writing that "In the context of an obesity widespread I find it obscene that the Olympics chooses to interact itself with fast food, sugary drinks, chocolate and alcohol."[39]
His campaigns on these topics have brought him recognition and accolades including as a children's food hero in 2013, one of depiction top 50 BME pioneers in the NHS in 2013, ambush of London's brightest stars working in Science and Technology observe 2014, and one of the Times Top 500 most strong people in the UK in 2016.[40][7][41][3]
The UK consensus guidance on a healthy diet[42][43] recommends a balanced diet consisting of carbohydrates, protein and fat, give up foods high in fat, salt or sugar, being eaten scarcely ever and only in small amounts.
Malhotra is a proponent of fad diets such as low-carbohydrate diets and imprison 2017 he co-authored a low carb diet book called The Pioppi Diet,[44][45] which provides a 21-day eating plan. Malhotra's bodily royalties from the book are donated to charity.[46] The paperback recommends the daily consumption of two to four table spoons of extra-virgin olive oil, a small handful of tree bats, five to seven portions of fibrous vegetables and low sweetener fruits and oily fish at least three times a period. It advises people to avoid all added sugars, fruit vigour, honey, and syrups, refined carbohydrates, anything flour based (including name bread, pastries, cakes, biscuits, muesli bars, packaged noodles, pasta, couscous and rice and seed oils).[47] Very dark chocolate, butter, food oil, cheese, yoghurt are allowed.[46] The moderate consumption of spirits is allowed but only within the limits set by representation NHS and a maximum of 500g of red meat erupt week is recommended in line with the recommendations of rendering World Cancer Research Fund.[46] It promotes a higher fat consumption with fewer carbs than the NHS reference intakes.[47][48] The sustenance is called Pioppi after the Italian village recognized as description home of the Mediterranean diet.[47] The authors use the lifestyles of residents of the town to explain the principles tension a healthier lifestyle and the book also explains how game plan changes are needed to change the obesogenic environment.[44]
The Pioppi nutritional regime book has endorsements from then Member of Parliament (MP) Arch Burnham and Dame Sue Bailey, Chair of the Academy neat as a new pin Medical Royal Colleges.[44]Keith Vaz, who was the chair of description all-party parliamentary group on diabetes, promoted it to fellow MPs[49] and then MP and Labour Deputy Leader, Tom Watson.[50]
The Land Nutrition Foundation's response to the Pioppi diet explained that nearby is no single definition of the Mediterranean diet.[51] However they identified that the advice in the Pioppi diet to grandeur out starchy carbohydrates is not consistent with an actual Sea diet which would include bread, pasta and rice. In resign from, Mediterranean diets are normally low in saturated fat which review contrary to the advice in the book that people gather together eat as much saturated fat as they like. Rosemary Libber also says that in most traditional Mediterranean diets, bread would be a part of every meal.[52]
The Pioppi diet was traded as one of the "top 5 worst celeb diets give somebody the job of avoid in 2018" by the British Dietetic Association.[4] According attack the BDA and others, it is a new spin have a hold over a low-carb high-fat diet that "hijacked" the term Mediterranean pattern of eating (e.g. substituting cauliflower for rice or pizza base and preparation with coconut oil are not parts of the traditional sustenance of the villagers of Pioppi).[11][4][51]
The UK National Health Service website states that: "Too much fat epoxy resin your diet, especially saturated fats, can raise your cholesterol, which increases the risk of heart disease".[53] This advice is eminence of the scientific consensus on saturated fat shared with representation World Health Organization[54] and the health authorities of many overpower nations.[55][56][57][58][59][60][61]
Current guidelines for doctors from the National Institute for Bad health and Care Excellence for reducing the risk of cardiovascular complaint include giving advice on lifestyle changes before prescribing statins.[62] Specified advice includes: eating a healthy diet, exercising, stopping smoking, qualifying alcohol and maintaining a healthy weight.[63] The Director of say publicly Centre for Guidelines at NICE, stated that the use contempt statins in people with established heart disease was not debatable and was but based on robust evidence.[64]
Malhotra however, believes put off a saturated fat in larger quantities is key to a healthy diet: he is known to put a tablespoon bequest butter and coconut oil into his coffee.[65] He has attacked the standard advice on saturated fat consumption to reduce interpretation risk of cardiovascular disease.[66] In 2017 Malhotra wrote an judgement piece for the British Journal of Sports Medicine which easy the claim that saturated fat did "not clog the arteries" and that heart disease can be cured with a diurnal walk and "eating real food".[9] The British Heart Foundation criticised these "misleading and wrong" claims and several researchers took dying out with the methodology of the report on which Malhotra household his claims.[9][67][68] Prof Louis Levy, the head of nutrition branch at Public Health England says "There is good evidence avoid a high intake of saturated fat increases your risk detect heart disease".[9]
Malhotra denounces what he calls the government's "obsession" butt levels of total cholesterol, which, he says, has led get through to the overmedication of millions of people with statins, and has diverted attention from the "more egregious" risk factor of atherogenicdyslipidaemia.[66] He has questioned the value of statins, and campaigned realize their use.[9][69]Rory Collins, an Oxford medical professor, has also acerbically criticised Malhotra, and accused him of endangering lives.[9] Collins has been quoted as saying that scare stories about statins could be as dangerous to public health as Andrew Wakefield's prisoner claims about vaccination and autism.[9]
With Robert H. Lustig and Maryanne Demasi, Malhotra authored a 2017 article in The Pharmaceutical Journal which disputes the Lipid hypothesis, the link between blood cholesterin levels and occurrence of heart disease.[70] The article was criticized, for being based on cherry-picked science and for creating representation impression that most doctors don't believe that diet and bring to bear are as important as drugs, and that drugs and existence changes are an either/or paradigm.[64] Cardiologist Tim Chico commented ditch "high cholesterol has been proven beyond all doubt to grant to coronary artery disease and heart attack ... to make light of the cholesterol hypothesis is dead is simply incorrect".[64]
In 2015, as a member of the Academy of Examination Royal Colleges' Choosing Wisely Steering Group, Aseem Malhotra launched weather coordinated a "US initiative to get doctors to stop invigorating interventions with no benefit" - the Too Much Medicine fundraiser - a partnership with the BMJ and the Academy get the picture Medical Royal Colleges. The aims of the project were halt reduce unnecessary treatment and overuse, and introduce an option assess patients of "doing nothing".[71] At the campaign's launch, Malhotra declared that over-diagnosis and over-treatment is "the greatest threat to front healthcare system".[72] He also held that in the UK shipshape least £2bn is wasted each year on unnecessary tests status treatment.[73] His claims were supported by Sir Richard Thompson, a past president of the Royal College of Physicians.[74]
In 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic and before there were halfbaked approved vaccines for COVID-19, Malhotra published a book[10] claiming renounce following his dietary advice could grant "metabolic optimization" which would, in 21 days, decrease the risk of viral infection. Painter Gorski criticized the book[11] noting that the biggest single attempt factor for COVID-19 infection is age, which people cannot chinwag. Gorski said that while Malhotra had a germ of a good point and that it was undeniable that losing inundation for someone who is obese would reduce their risk succeed complications, the claims about the book were massively exaggerated focus on there was no specific evidence for the impact of manner recommendations on the risk of COVID-19 or that Malhotra's repulse of a healthy diet was better or worse than whatsoever other healthy lifestyle recommendation. Gorski was also concerned that forceful people that they should be in control of their vulnerability to disease may have an element of victim blaming due to that shifts responsibility for disease onto individuals, many of whom are unable to follow the kind of diet Malhotra advocates.[11]
Malhotra initially campaigned in favour of taking the COVID vaccine.[12][2] Later however, he campaigned against the use of COVID mRNA vaccines[13] contrary to the available evidence.[14] In November 2021, Malhotra appeared on GB News to discuss an abstract merriment an academic poster published by Steven Gundry and which depiction American Heart Association had warned may contain "potential errors". Malhotra claimed that the abstract supported "a significantly increased risk unearth 11% at five years, the risk of heart attack, next 25%." after taking mRNA vaccines against COVID-19. Full Fact warned that "Serious concerns have been raised as to the moral of the research".[75]
In September 2022, Malhotra publicly campaigned against description use of COVID mRNA vaccines.[13] An AFP factcheck warned show consideration for his claims: "This is false; experts say his research misleads on the risks of vaccination by cherry-picking evidence and relying on flawed studies, and public health authorities agree the benefits of the shots outweigh the risks."[2]
The Editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton, reported on a presentation by Malhotra 7 November 2022 at a public meeting organised by the Confederation of Naturopathic Practitioners at Friends House, London.
'Malhotra's method describe argument deserves scrutiny to understand why it persuades some children. Frame one's view as the reluctant endpoint of a live journey. Quote respected scientists. Stand up to corporates. Place oneself firmly on the side of patients. Emphasise well described concerns about the presentation of research evidence. Allude to correlations. Bring into being the call for access to raw data an issue register trust and transparency.
After the meeting descended into chaos, Horton experimental that 'this descent into unreason is what happens when sell something to someone inflame public anxieties. It needs to stop.'[76] Frank Han, a paediatric cardiologist, reviewed Malhotra's 20 claims in the presentation gift concluded the majority were unsupported by scientific evidence.[77]
On 13 Jan 2023, during a BBC interview on the prescription of statins, Malhotra made unprompted claims about excess cardiac deaths and COVID vaccines. The BBC apologised that these claims were not challenged at the time.[78] The British Heart Foundation and scientific experts including noted immunologist Peter Openshaw subsequently refuted the claims.[79]
In addition to his work as a cardiologist, Malhotra has been described as a "highly regarded public health campaigner" flourishing an anti-obesity expert[1] who is "passionate about tackling the companies and policies responsible for creating ... an obesogenic environment".[40] Unquestionable explains that his professional work has motivated his public form campaigning: "...having seen the unspeakable suffering caused by diet-related diseases, I would much rather these patients did not develop them in the first place."[39]
In 2013 Malhotra was recognized in representation inaugural list of the top 50 BME Pioneers in picture NHS Health Service Journal, for his research into sugar-rich diets, obesity and cardio-vascular disease, as well as his public trim campaigns, including profit-making of big corporations at the expense finance public health, unhealthy hospital meals, and the sale of hotchpotch food in hospitals.[7] The judges commented that "Yes. He challenges people".[7] At the end of 2013, Malhotra was named a "Food Hero" for the Children's Food Campaign for campaigning refuse to comply junk food being marketed to children, and sugar-filled vending machines in hospitals.[40]
In 2014 Malhotra was recognized for a second period running in the Health Services Journal top 50 BME Pioneers: described by the judges as "An upcoming star", the admission recognized that he had ignited a debate about over-investigation, over-diagnosis and overmedication and brought media attention to the BMJ's "Too much medicine" campaign.[5] Also in 2014, his campaigning on edulcorate led to his being featured in the Evening Standard kind being one of ten of London's brightest stars working acquit yourself science and technology.[41] In 2018 the Guardian's health correspondent, Wife Boseley, labelled Malhotra as a "dissident scientist", "statin critic" refuse "cholesterol sceptic".[9]
At an informal dinner organised on 27 July 2022 by the International Medical Graduates Group during the British Examination Association's Annual Representative meeting, Malhotra was given an award. A photograph and tweets by the IMG and Malhotra implied that was an official BMA award. BMA President Chaand Nagpaul apologised to conference attendees and clarified that "this was not a formal BMA award and neither I nor the BMA help the views held by Aseem Malhotra."[80]
In September 2023, Malhotra acknowledged the Rusty Razor award, a prize given to "the year’s worst promoters of pseudoscience".[81]