Holford Watch: Patrick Holford, nutritionism and bad science

Endorsing Patrick Holford seems to be like taking on ownership of the Monkey’s Paw. Those of you who are familiar with this horror story should cut ahead as should those of a nervous disposition.

There are stories that, once heard, you can not erase them and they bob up to give you the horrors for the rest of your life. For my mother, she was particularly susceptible to the Monkey’s Paw in which people made a wish and then had it come true in ways that they could not have envisaged in their most wretched dreams. E.g., a poor family wished for a substantial sum of money which they then obtain when the son dies in a horrid accident. The mother then wishes that the son were alive again and his body rises from the grave and shuffles up to the house… You get the picture.

Recently, we learned that Dr John Marks was startled to discover that an endorsement that he had given Patrick Holford in the late 70s or early 80s, is not allowed to lie sleeping in the grave but is being bruited about to endorse not only books that Dr Marks has not read but also Holford’s application for an appointment as a Visiting Professor to the University of Teesside.

[Holford] has hounded me with pre-publication copies of books etc, each of which has been more exaggerated and less scientific. I was also involved with him at the start of his work on nutritional standards in ordinary members of the public, but it soon became obvious that the whole study was unsupportable and I withdrew completely from it. I also challenged one of his books but got nowhere, even though I suggested that it be not published until he had confirmed some of his ‘observations’…Shortly after that I wrote to him to say that I was not prepared any longer to support his work or views in any way and to please stop using my name as a supporter of his work, and stop writing to me.

Well, it seems as if Professor Andre Tylee may be experiencing the Monkey’s Paw curse of the Holford endorsement. Like Dr Marks, Prof Tylee was interested in the early reports on the role of nutrition in promoting mental health and provided some generous comments for the first editions of Optimum Nutrition for the Mind by way of general encouragement. However, since those early days of involvement, it seems as if Prof Tylee has learned that endorsing Holford tends to involve the sponsor in endorsing his other work, as if by proxy, which is unsustainable when those areas are outside one’s own area of expertise. After all, it is not given to everyone to approach the polymath standards of Patrick Holford whose expertise ranges from clinical nutrition and clinical psychology to the dangers of WiFi, correct dental hygiene, how to prevent cancer and how to prevent conception, to name but a few of his areas of self-professed excellence.

Sensibly enough, Prof Tylee contacted the publishers of Optimum Nutrition for the Mind and requested that his endorsement should be removed (it is currently a pull quote that is featured prominently on the front cover). Prof Tylee also contacted Patrick Holford to ask him not to use his name and endorsement out of context.

Of course, Prof Tylee doesn’t have the time or administrative resources to track every use that Holford makes of his name so he may well be surprised to learn of some of the enterprises to which he is (unknowingly) lending his name and reputation. E.g., Prof Colquhoun has obtained a copy of the CV that Patrick Holford submitted as part of his case for the Visiting Professor appointment at the University of Teesside; Prof Tylee is mentioned as a Holford collaborator.

Together with Professor Andre Tylee, professor of mental care primary health at the Institute of Psychiatry, [Holford] formed the special interest group in mental health and nutrition, now operating as the charitable Food for the Brain Foundation. The Brain Bio Centre is owned by the Food for the Brain Foundation

Prof Tylee is clear that his involvement with the Brain Bio Centre was limited to acting as a research adviser and attempting to raise funds for research initiatives that would encompass systematic reviews on depression and nutrition although such funding did not materialise.

Until Holford Watch contacted Prof Tylee in an attempt to clarify some issues, it seems that he was not aware that he is passionate about nor that he supports a nutritional approach to managing significant mental health issues and believes in assessing “mentally ill patients for food intolerance”.

One advocate of a nutritional approach to schizophrenia is Professor Andre Tylee, chairman of The National Institute of Mental Health, who is responsible for educating all British GPs in the treatment of mental health.

Through the Brain Bio Centre, a London-based treatment centre, set up by the UK Mental Health Project, he supports the testing of mentally ill patients for food intolerances and believes “the optimum nutrition approach is the breakthrough we [the medical profession] have been waiting for.”

Patrick Holford, a leading authority on new approaches to health and nutrition, and director of the UK Mental Health Project, believes that schizophrenia can be cured: “One way of reversing symptoms is to minimize the biochemical imbalances that may have led to distorted mental experiences. This can be done through diet changes and improving nutrition.”

Holford Watch also asked Prof Tylee to comment on Holford’s introduction to the information pack for the Brain Bio Centre (available for download) which states:

After 20 years research at the Institute for Optimum, working with literally thousands of clients, we feel confident to say that this approach is highly effective. It should, in our opinion, be the first port of call, not the last, for a wide range of mental health concerns including autism, schizophrenia, depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, learning difficulties, dyslexia, dyspraxia, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.

Prof Tylee is listed on page 3 as one of the Brain Bio Centre ‘people’. However, Prof Tylee is clear that he has never advocated nor endorsed a nutritional/food intolerance approach to schizophrenia nor any of the other conditions listed.

Given his clear memory that he has never explictly endorsed nutritional management for mental health issues, Prof Tylee was surprised to learn that Lucy Mayhew had written the following about his passions, practices and endeavours:

While 40% of patients who walk into doctor’s surgeries are suffering from a mental health problem, an astonishing two-thirds of GPs have had no mental health training. As a result, most GPs do not even consider their patients’ nutritional status. Professor André Tylee is chairman of the National Institute for Mental Health and is responsible for educating all British GPs in the treatment of mental health. He is passionate about the benefits of nutritional therapy and describes it as “the breakthrough we’ve been waiting for”. He is hoping to ensure that nutritional approaches will become the first step that doctors use to defeat mental illness.

Tylee is working with Patrick Holford, founder of the Institute of Optimum Nutrition and author of the bestseller Optimum Nutrition for the Mind. Holford’s latest enterprise is The Brain Bio Centre, which is dedicated to helping patients recover from all forms of brain-centred illness, from depression to Alzheimer’s, using nutritional therapy. Tylee is anxious to introduce the clinic’s approaches to the NHS and to conduct a clinical study that confirms their anecdotal success rate of 80%. The clinic defines success as freedom from symptoms, the ability to socialise with friends and family, and the paying of income tax.

According to Holford, a nutritionist and psychologist, nine out 10 people eat less than the recommended daily amounts of our 39 essential nutrients. “They’re not called essential for nothing,” he says. When this is combined with other factors such as high homocysteine levels, which leave one twice as likely to succumb to depression, blood-sugar and neurotransmitter imbalances, it is hardly startling that people’s brain chemistry goes awry.

Readers with good memories will recall that Lucy Mayhew is the source of the unattributed quote in Holford’s CV in which he claims that he is endorsed by The Guardian.

It might have been useful if either Patrick Holford or the Uni. of Teesside Conferment Committee had approached Prof Tylee to ask him to provide a reference in direct, rather than implied, support of the application for an appointment as Visiting Professor.

Dr Marks and Prof Tylee seem to have been quoted beyond their comfort zones for New Optimum Nutrition for the Mind and both have attempted to disentangle their Holford endorsements. Dr Chris Steele of GMTV is reportedly removing his endorsement of New Optimum Nutrition for the Mind. Offhand, it doesn’t look as if many of the publicised endorsements are current for much longer. However, it will be almost impossible to amend this endorsements on the internet.

We do have queries in to various other experts that are cited in support of Holford and his works: it will be interesting to see if they currently support him or are struggling to remember something that they may have written some decades ago. We emailed Patrick Holford some time ago to enquire as to the identity of the professors whom Holford claim reviewed and endorsed all of the chapters in Food Is Better Medicine Than Drugs but, some weeks later, we are still waiting for a response.

Now, my mother might have suggested that Holford is taking supplements for a brass neck along with his mega-doses of vitamin C and other nutrients. Jon has previously commented on attempts to erase the Tylee-Holford links but it seems as if the curse of the Monkey’s Paw is just too strong.