In Clickbait Clinic, Stacey meets Eddie Abbew and his daughter Selina.
Eddie’s become an advocate online for the carnivore diet and they explain how it’s improved their health – for Selina in particular, who explains she felt ill constantly before.
But in science, you just can’t give population-level public health advice based on an individual’s experience. You have to look at studies, meta-analysis – all the research.
There is currently no sound evidence that the carnivore diet can cure the range of health conditions that people claim it can.
So why has it improved their health? One possible explanation is that it’s essentially an elimination diet – where they’ve removed foods which come with potential allergies or intolerances, like gluten or lactose.
Elimination diets can be really useful if you think you’re having reactions to things you’re eating. But slowly reintroducing foods back into your diet is key. That’s what allows you to work out exactly where the issues are coming from, while letting you have as varied a diet as possible in the long term.
The problem with the carnivore diet is that you aren’t ever adding those foods back in.
