Graham Phillips
Graham Phillips BPharm FRPharmS is a second generation community pharmacist. He describes himself as “The Pharmacist who Gave Up Drugs! “
Having played a very senior leadership role in the pharmacy profession he became disillusioned with the NHS one-size-fits-all approach to healthcare with its emphasis on waiting for symptoms to arise before treating (suppressing?) them with drugs. He pioneered a new approach using his scientific knowledge, clinical expertise and new technology which resulted in the ProLongevity service.
The ProLongevity programme helps people who want to lose weight, improve wellbeing and avoid/reverse diabetes, by using new technology to monitor real-time blood sugar levels. We provide personalised advice based on your data to help you make changes to your diet and lifestyle. We avoid traditional approaches that treat symptoms after the damage has been done. Prevention is better than cure.
Graham has two sons, one is also a pharmacist and the other a corporate lawyer. He lives with his partner, Karen (a GP also passionate about lifestyle medicine) in North London.
Like Jackie Fletcher, Graham is also an ambassador for the Public Health Collaboration. He believes that the world has become dominated by Big Food on the one hand (makes you sick) and Big Pharma on the other (makes you 10% better). In the end the science must prevail.
Community pharmacies are part of the Public Health network and they see 1,600,000 people per day for health related reasons, which is more contacts than the rest of the NHS put together.
As a pharmacist he had the fundamental scientific knowledge to go back and look at the science.
Graham calls it the “Tyranny of Food” he would be starving at breakfast, as he finished breakfast he would be thinking “What's for lunch?”. He would be ravenous at lunch and at the end of lunch he would be thinking “What’s for supper?”. He was hungry the whole time. Now he isn’t hungry.
Having won many awards in the pharmaceutical industry Graham ended up frustrated because he felt they were locking the door after the horse has bolted. If you stop taking your hypertensive medication or diabetes medication you are still hypertensive or diabetic. Medication isn’t curing people it is suppressing the symptoms. People are ending up with more and more medication.
Graham understood the hormonal response to food and energy balance and the importance of the gut microbiome combined with a Freestyle Libre constant glucose monitor (CGM) he started to help people change diet and lifestyle to make lasting changes. He was having great results which was more exciting than spooning tablets into people.
Graham thinks pharmacies should be remunerated for not dispensing medication. He talks about a prevention program would ensure we would be in a better place to avoid getting COVID-19 or getting less symptoms in addition to the other benefit of being that the vaccine would work better.
Graham believes we have to debate the science because that’s how things change.
Sleep is also very important. Did you you know if you have 2-3 nights of bad sleep and then have a flu jab it halves the effectiveness?
We go on to talk about seed oils and its history, as well as the history of Corn Flakes.
We are very fortunate to be able to have Graham back on the show to follow up with other topics.
Graham's Top Tip
Look up the PHC (Public Health Collaboration) https://phcuk.org - a great place to start especially for their resources or being able to access one of their Ambassadors.
Resources Mentioned
The Fast Diet - Dr Michael Mosely & Mimi Spencer
(Previously The 5-2 Diet)
21 Immunity Plan - Dr Aseem Malhotra
History of seed oils book that Graham couldn't remember was
The Big Fat Surprise - Nina Teicholz
Ancestral Dietary Strategy to Prevent and Treat Macular Degeneration - Dr Chris Knobbe
Quotes by Graham Phillips
“I was a fat kid, now I was a fat kid when all the other kids were slim. Now all the kids are fat and the odd ones out are the slim ones, in a generation or two, which shows it has to be environmental, it can’t be genetic.”
“The fatter I got, the hungrier I got and the hungrier I got, the fatter I got”
“We are not trained, health professionals get essentially zero training in sleep, nutrition, exercise, lifestyle and strength training. Our training basically concentrates on “How to identify when things go wrong” and what drug is the best one to use. It’s not because we are all evil and corrupt, it is how we have been trained.”
“And it blew me away, I was astonished with the results I was achieving. It was so empowering and exciting compared to always spooning more tablets into people.”
“Re-imagine the pharmacy contract and say why don’t we get paid more for NOT dispensing medication than dispensing them.”
“They understand that a healthy diet doesn’t mean being hungry.”
“If you asked me how you could have the longest, healthiest life. I would simply say secrete the least possible amount of insulin over a lifetime.”
“Can you sit down on the floor unaided and can you get up again unaided, without using your hands?”
“I've always been fascinated by what's the potential role for community pharmacy. In preventive public health, rather than what's the role for community pharmacy, simply doling out medication.”
“80-90% of a long life, that’s the one we all want to live, is lifestyle related. How empowering is that because it’s under your own control.”
“There are far more fat people in the world now than thin people but they're malnourished fat people.”
“Your body has no calorie receptor; it doesn't recognise calories.”
“I spent years eating all that stuff, avoiding saturated fat, avoiding red meat, everything was low fat, high carb. Guilty! I'm so bloody angry now that I've been lied to.”
Connect with Graham Phillips on social media
Twitter: https://twitter.com/grahamsphillips
Twitter: https://twitter.com/longevity_pro
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Prolongevity1
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/278916313071738
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtzbvQ-igGVwv7z0uzQ-FnA
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/prolongevity_
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-phillips-382504a/Website
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