Person Directed Healthcare Informed consent Shared Decision making Ketogenic Metabolic Therapy Voluntary Assisted Dying
South Australia, Australia
Joined October 2019
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What happens when we die? Evidence suggests that it is not the end but a return to who we really are - a journey to our real home. Can we use near death experiences (NDEs) to guide us to our real purpose in this life? How should we use the learnings from people experiencing NDEs to inform how we manage Voluntary Assisted Dying? If you are interested, this is an excellent production to watch. Rethinking Death: Exploring What Happens When We Die youtu.be/_18UdG4STHA?si=iQ-f… via @YouTube
#NDE #VAD
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
Insulin resistance is the most prevalent and relevant health problem in the world.
Insulin resistance and its twin sister hyperinsulinaemia probably account for 80% of my work as a doctor It predates T2D by about 10 years Critically it responds to a low carb diet more than a low fat diet Please look at our review published here mdpi.com/2072-6643/18/16/266… @BenBikmanPhD @BraciaRodzen @ketoproject1
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
AMHS has written to the RACGP calling for Therapeutic Carbohydrate Reduction to be formally recognised in Type 2 Diabetes care. Full letter: amhs.org.au/news/amhs-letter…
I’m excited to be speaking at the Metabolic Health NZ Summit, taking place on 13–14 November at AUT’s North Campus in Auckland.
The Summit brings together researchers, health professionals and practitioners working to improve metabolic health in New Zealand. It’s going to be an awesome two great days of learning, discussion and connection. I’d love it if you could join us and support NZ’s growing metabolic health movement.
Early bird tickets are available until 31 August, and lots of options available (in-person and online). Find out more and register here:
metabolichealthnz.org/event/…
This is why the Australian Health Care System is on its knees and why few medical graduates want to enter into General Practice Training
Our paper in @theMJA showing trends in Australia health system spending. Health budget spent on comprehensive primary care dropped from 8% to 5.5% in last two decades @UNSWPrimaryCare @RACGPPresident @RACGP - Full paper 👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/…
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
I can't love this post enough.
The year is 1950. Your doctor lights a cigarette and tells you smoking is fine. He read it in a study. He is telling the truth about having read it. He does not know, or is not saying, that the study was funded by the tobacco industry.
The year is 1958. Your doctor tells you to eat less fat. The evidence is contested. The contestation is not in the public messaging. The food industry has been helpful in clarifying which findings deserve attention. Some researchers who published contradictory data have been quietly defunded. Ancel Keys is on the cover of Time magazine.
The year is 1962. Your doctor prescribes thalidomide to your pregnant wife for morning sickness. It has been approved. The FDA gave it the green light in Europe. Twelve thousand children will be born with severe limb malformations before anyone in an official capacity acknowledges the problem. The families are told the drug was safe. The drug was approved. Both of these things remain true.
The year is 1972. Your doctor prescribes Valium. Britain is in the grip of a benzodiazepine wave that will last two decades. The dependency risk is known internally. It is not shared. Your doctor is not lying to you. He was not told either.
The year is 1999. Your doctor prescribes Vioxx for your arthritis. It is newer than ibuprofen, well-tolerated, and Merck has a study showing it works. Merck also has internal data suggesting it roughly doubles the risk of heart attack. This data will not reach your doctor for four more years. Fifty thousand people are estimated to have died in the interim. Merck eventually settles for 4.85 billion dollars. No criminal charges are brought.
The year is 2002. Your doctor prescribes OxyContin. Purdue Pharma trained its sales representatives to tell doctors the addiction risk was less than one percent. That figure came from a letter, not a study. The letter was about patients with terminal cancer on short-term doses in hospital settings. Your doctor is a GP with a patient who has a bad back. Nobody draws a distinction. Nobody is required to.
The year is 2008. Your doctor checks your cholesterol. Your LDL is elevated. You are prescribed a statin. Nobody mentions that the number needed to treat for primary prevention is approximately 250. Nobody mentions that the muscle deterioration you'll notice over the next two years is listed as a rare side effect rather than a documented pattern affecting a meaningful percentage of patients. The trial that informed the prescription was funded by the manufacturer.
Now it is today.
Your doctor has new guidelines. New studies. New consensus.
He is confident.
He has always been confident.
The confidence has never been the problem.
The confidence is, in fact, precisely the problem.
They aren’t interested in quality general practice or holistic care. They are only interested in votes
So in Ellenbrook the @AustralianLabor is funding an average GP clinic $1.4 million per year or $250 per patient to see patients with trivial injuries that we in rural and remote settings are expected to see for $47
Where is the health equality in that?
This is metrocentric vote buying and a middle finger to rural and remote communities.
Cellulitis? I see this frequently and manage it locally.
Lacerations, cmon. Most of this is average GP work being exuberantly funded.
Foreign body in the eye? I take this out of farmers from wheat to welds.
When is enough…enough?
This is a 2 tiered system
Metro being > rural
Throughout my lifetime, when I have thought about the holocaust, I have reassured myself that it could never happen again. Now I am not so sure.
Nine million people were brutally murdered by the Nazi regime during the holocaust. Six million of them because they were Jewish. Three million of them because of their ethnicity, their political views, their sexuality or because they were disabled.
The Holocaust did not begin with concentration camps and gas chambers. It began with the loss of empathy and the normalisation of exclusion and hatred.
Holocaust Memorial Day exists because it is so important that we remember clearly what humankind is capable of and work together to make sure it never happens again. #Holocaust #HolocaustRemembranceDay
Today, on Australia Day, I am immensely grateful for everything this country has done for me and my family. My fourth great grandfather John Birkinshaw (pictured) was transported to Tasmania in 1821 for participating in an uprising in Yorkshire because he was too poor to feed his children and wanted the system changed. My three times great grandfather and grandmother William and Elizabeth Lawlor migrated to Australia from Ireland in 1866 to escape religious persecution. Many members of my family migrated to Australia seeking a better life for them and their children. My dad migrated from Scotland in 1926 and my husband from the UK in 1970. My daughter in law's parents migrated from China in the 1980s.
Nine generations of my family have settled in this wonderful country and call it home.
The Australia I love, does not discriminate on the basis of gender, race, religion or sexual orientation and believes in a fair go for everyone. This is the Australia, I am proud of and the one I am prepared to fight for.
HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY #AustraliaDay #australiaday2026
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
Normalization of glucose in people with prediabetes, i.e. achieving remission, is linked to halving of major cardiovascular adverse events over ensuing decades
thelancet.com/journals/landi…
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
Calling all practitioners interested in the intersection of metabolic and mental health! Complete our questionnaire and join forces with us in a community of practice and share this with your networks.
Complete and share the survey:
bit.ly/3Lf4q6A
@BaszuckiGroup and @Metabolic_Mind are responding to the call to create a network of clinicians to share cases, education, practice tips, science, etc in the rapidly expanding field of Metabolic Psychiatry (and beyond.). If you're a physician, dietician, therapist, psychologist, etc practicing in this way, or interested in doing so, please complete our survey so we can assess the community's needs.
Together, we can bring the field to a new understanding of the metabolic drivers of mental health and deliver transformative care at scale.
If this doesn’t scare you it should
Why does Australia's drug regulator fight so hard to keep its vaccine safety documents secret?
Australians still don’t know whether the safety monitoring they were promised by @TGAgovau was ever implemented.
FULL story: blog.maryannedemasi.com/p/st…
@DrJulieSladden @SenatorAntic
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
That was me until I discovered how low carb is amazing for CKD. Those poor people are on so many drugs it’s amazing they have room for food. Low carb leads to less diabetes meds/ BP meds/ reflux meds/ depression meds And EGFR goes ⬆️. It’s not about the protein . #CKD
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
It’s a happy day when the liver fibroscan nurse calls with the patient beside her because they are both so excited to see the previously abnormal results completely normalize. #cirrhosis #fattyliver #lowcarb
LDL-cholesterol levels <100 mg/dL are linked to a higher mortality risk in individuals with apoB <90 mg/dL PMID: 40642933 Treatment LDL targets are likely to increase not decrease mortality
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
If I am lactose intolerant,I avoid lactose to lead a normal life.
If I am type 2 diabetic, I am carbohydrate intolerant.
So I avoid carbohydrates to lead a normal life.
Or take medications for the rest of my life
& deal with the disease.
Why is there even a choice here?
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
Looking forward to attending, catching up with friends (and maybe even speaking) at Low Carb Brisbane 2025, now just a couple of weeks away! lowcarbdownunder.com.au/even…
"Don't dumb it down" Dumbing it down decreases patient choice and makes informed consent and decision making impossible
There’s a widening rift of trust between the public and the biomedical community. One of the main reasons? Oversimplification.
Scientists and clinicians often assume patients can’t handle nuance. Out of caution, they “dumb it down”—reducing complexity to slogans (e.g. “Lower Cholesterol is Better”) in the hope that this will prevent harm or improve compliance.
But here’s the truth: people know when they’re being patronized. They can feel when they’re not getting the full picture. And that erodes trust faster than any confusing chart or technical term ever could.
The desire to learn and to be part of the conversation doesn’t require formal training. What it requires is honesty, respect, and the willingness to share nuance—even if that means the conversation gets messy.
My philosophy is simple: don’t dumb it down.
Give people the complexity. Let them wrestle with confusion. Because confusion isn’t failure—it’s the first step toward genuine understanding.
If you agree, share to spread the message: Don’t Dumb it Down
Laureen Lawlor-Smith retweeted
Could this be the saturated fat turning point in history? Let’s hope these implications become reality, and the guidelines change, causing a worldwide ripple effect. @bigfatsurprise @zoeharcombe 🙌🏻
The new Dietary Guidelines will drop the caps on saturated fat!!
That's what FDA Commissioner @DrMakaryFDA implied yesterday 👏👏👏👏 (My head is spinning--he's citing research directly from my book!)
youtube.com/watch?v=qym5dAQD…
"Since Ancel Keys in the 1960s decided to demonize saturated fats with a hypothesis that was supported with data that was incomplete and methodologically flawed in his Seven Countries Study
The medical establishment started with a robust debate...in the NEJM and the National Academy, but that debate ended in the 1970s. Because there was groupthink. The medical establishment locked arms and walked off a cliff together, deciding the reason for heart disease was that people were eating skim milk and no-fat and low-fat foods.
IGNORING the role of refined carbs and so many other things that drive general body inflammation which is the precursor of fat deposition in the arteries
That dogma still lives large and you see it in the food guidelines that we are revising.
We are going to ensure that the guidelines are based on science and not medical dogma."
Hard to believe...I've been working on this issue for 20 years. We are poised for a historic change.
