The Brexit effect – ideological conflicts, bitter disputes over facts, distrust of experts, trolling abuse on twitter– seems an apt description of what has been happening recently in the supposedly evidence-based world of nutrition.

A diagnosis of cancer is really scary. It can seem as if there are only two options, neither very appealing. Conventional treatment which promises a lot but is likely to be toxic and gruelling or the complementary route, seen to lack the punch needed to beat cancer.

Have you heard about the NHS trust that recently introduced an incredibly brutal, and possibly illegal, form of drug rationing to save money? Patients suffering post -operative pain will get half the dose normally required to keep them comfortable, kidney dialysis will be done twice a week rather than three and all diabetics will get the same amount of daily insulin regardless of their blood sugar levels.

Trust me I’m a doctor has become a knowing, cynical catch-phrase but the underlying truth is that we do need to trust our doctors, not only because trusted doctors exert a beneficial healing effect but also because we are entrusting them with something precious – our health.

Would any doctor continue to prescribe a drug which they had been told would benefit 20 per cent of patients with a specific illness, once the truth was revealed to be around 7 per cent, only one percent better than no treatment at all? You’d have to hope not and that concerned and angry doctors would then shout loudly that they had been lied to and that patients had endured years of pointless treatment.

Last week a massive piece of research extolling the benefits of statins was published in the Lancet. Its headline message was that the benefits of statins are hugely underestimated and far outweigh any harm. It had found that only 2 people per hundred suffer side effects while 15 people per hundred avoid strokes and heart attacks.

It came garlanded with the full majesty of the medical profession. Thirty pages long with 28 authors, 300 references and a declaration of interests that filled 44 lines of small type and mentioned more than 20 of the largest pharmaceutical companies. This juggernaut was designed to bury the widely publicised doubts about the effectiveness and safety of these drugs already prescribed to 6 million people.

So, women who take HRT to help with symptoms of the menopause have a three times greater risk of developing breast cancer, according to a paper in the British Journal of Cancer((Michael E Jones, Minouk J Schoemaker at al Menopausal hormone therapy and breast cancer: what is the true size of the increased risk? British Journal of Cancer (2016) 115, 607–615)) published a couple of weeks ago. That’s certainly alarming news if you are approaching or going through menopause but it should really not come as a great surprise. The issue of HRT and cancer has been rumbling away for over a decade.

A small but remarkable trial of the effects that a change of lifestyle can have on diabetes and obesity has just been published in the relatively obscure SAMJ (South African Medical Journal).

The results are impressive and the implications ground breaking. The starting point is that the official ‘evidence based’, low fat, calories-in equals calories-out approach isn’t working.

Twelve years ago Robin Daly’s 23-year-old daughter Bryony was dying of cancer when he set up a charity called Yes to Life to provide information about unconventional treatments such as changes in diet, supplements, vitamin C infusions, oxygen therapy and the like. At the time, although popular all such complementary options were sternly rejected as ineffective and possibly dangerous by conventional oncologists.

One of the alarming and intriguing things about the cholesterol lowering drugs statins is the vigour and ferocity with which supporters defend them. It’s alarming because it makes it almost impossible for both doctors and patients to get accurate information about their risks and benefits. Intriguing because it is so unscientific.