Getting It Right

A new book by professor Tim Noakes and journalist Marika Sboros takes a hard look at the real root causes of chronic lifestyle related diseases – and why the covid-19 pandemic has highlighted where the accepted medical approach to them goes wrong.

- Zena Le Roux

Prof Tim Noakes

Q You’ve both long advocated low-carb living and co-authored Lore of Nutrition and Real Food on Trial. Why did you feel the need for another book?

TIM We wanted to write a book to highlight the importance of dietary determined metabolic health for improved immunity and reduced risk of Covid-19 infection. I would be very happy to focus on Covid if we also addressed the other issues at the same time, which in my opinion are a bigger problem. My position is that if governments were really concerned about your health, they would be addressing Type 2 diabetes and all the other diseases that are causing people to die at this moment too. I want people to focus on what they can do for themselves: reduce visceral fat, because that is the single biggest risk factor for a fatal outcome in Covid-19.

Q How big a problem is T2 diabetes?