Marika Sboros



This low-carb high-fat evangelist, endorser of a ketogenic diet for health, and vaccine skeptic uses her position as a journalist to promote her erroneous health and nutrition views as science-based to a wide audience.

Marika Sboros is a South African author, journalist, cholesterol denialist, conspiracy theorist and food woo promoter. Sboros is a low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) fanatic and a poster girl for Tim Noakes.

Sboros has been criticized for publishing diet and health misinformation. She operates the LCHF website FoodMed.net.

Credentials
Sboros has a BA degree from University of the Witwatersrand with a major in English. She describes herself as "one of South Africa's top writers on medicine for health in body and mind." She has no qualifications in medicine or nutrition but spends her time attacking the medical community and promoting Big Pharma conspiracy theories. She has written health articles for BizNews. Sboros says if anyone can "provide solid science to disprove benefits of LCHF, she’ll publish it." 🇱🇮

Her connections with woo

 * Sboros is a die-hard supporter of Tim Noakes' low-carb high-fat "Banting Diet". The diet has been criticized by the medical community as unscientific.
 * Sboros has expressed support for the anti-vaccination movement.
 * Sboros has written that one of her favourite sources of health information is Mike Adams of NaturalNews. Adams is an anti-vaccination and HIV/AIDS denialist quack.
 * Sboros wrote an article that was generally supportive of homeopathy.
 * Sboros is a fan of Jordan Peterson and his daughter for eating a dangerous meat-only diet as neither "bow down to medical, dietetic dogma."
 * Sboros is a cholesterol and statin denialist, she claims that saturated fat and blood LDL cholesterol levels do not increase the risk of heart disease and supports the unproven claims of Malcolm Kendrick.   A medical expert has described statin denialism as an "internet-driven cult with deadly consequences."
 * Sboros is a supporter of fad diets, such as the paleo diet. She says the diet is not dangerous. It is. It can lead to nutritional deficiencies such as lack of calcium and increase the risk of ingesting toxins from high fish consumption.

Criticism of chemotherapy

 * In 2014, Sboros applauded 11-year-old Makayla Sault's parents for refusing chemotherapy, claiming that "one of those side effects [of chemotherapy] is premature death". She added that, "The parents want their daughter to be treated according to their centuries-old traditional healing. They have every right to choose a gentler path that has stood the test of time to try to save their child from cancer. Luckily for them, the judge in this case the judge [sic] agrees." Makayla Sault died in January 2015. Doctors had given her a 75 per cent chance of surviving her acute lymphoblastic leukemia using chemotherapy. Sboros has since deleted the post from her blog without acknowledgement.


 * Sboros posted on Twitter that "chemotherapy doesn't work", based on the research of a naturopath quack Peter Glidden. In response, surgical oncologist David Gorski refuted the false claims of Glidden on Twitter. In other tweets, Sboros mentioned the ketogenic diet as a possible cancer cure. Paediatrician Alastair McAlpine noticed these tweets and briefly mentioned Sboros in an article that refuted the claims of cranks promoting the ketogenic diet as a cancer cure. He commented that "South Africa's own Marika Sboros advised her 10,000 twitter followers to consider 'deferring' chemotherapy and try the ketogenic diet instead." Sboros took offense to this and responded that it was fake news and she had never "advised and do[es] not advise patients to consider delaying chemo or radiation in favour of a ketogenic diet." However, this is contradicted by many tweets she made on the subject. McAlpine logged many of these tweets and is it clear she tweeted that her followers should consider postponing chemotherapy for the ketogenic diet.

Publications

 * Lore of Nutrition: Challenging Conventional Dietary Beliefs (co-author with Tim Noakes, 2018). Alastair McAlpine has written an in-depth review of the book, he noted that the "conspiracy theories run thick and fast, the victim card is played extensively, the science is cherry-picked and unrepresentative, and the conclusions questionable. On top of this, a malicious streak runs through Lore of Nutrition: anyone not directly supportive of Noakes is a shill, an apologist for Big Food/Big Pharma, or an idiot."

External link

 * FoodMed.net