Zoë chats with Dr Peter Brukner about the power of nutrition in health and sports
In this conversation, Dr. Peter Brukner shares his journey from a successful sports medicine career to becoming an advocate for low-carb nutrition and its impact on health. He discusses his personal transformation after adopting a low-carb diet, the significant effects of nutrition on athletes, and the challenges faced in changing dietary guidelines.
Video
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Audio Recording
Bio
PETER BRUKNER OAM, MBBS, D Sc(honoris causa), FACSEP, FASMF, FACSM, FFSEM
Peter Brukner OAM is a specialist sports and exercise physician who is the founding partner of Olympic Park Sports Medicine Centre in Melbourne and Professor of Sports Medicine at LaTrobe University. A founding Executive Member of the Australasian College of Sports Physicians, he served two terms as President and played a key role in establishing sports medicine as a medical specialty in Australia.
Peter is the co-author of the widely used text book Clinical Sports Medicine, now in its 6th edition, and has been team physician for professional football clubs as well as national athletics, swimming, soccer and men’s hockey teams including Olympic and Commonwealth Games. Peter was the Socceroos Team Doctor at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa and subsequently became Head of Sports Medicine and Sports Science at Liverpool Football Club. He then served as Australian cricket team doctor from 2012-17, and as a consultant to the Melbourne Football Club during their premiership year in 2021.
Peter is the co-founder of the public health campaign SugarByHalf and is committed to the challenge of improving the nation’s health with improved diet and increased physical activity. His best selling book A Fat Lot of Good was published in 2018. Peter is also the Founder and Chair of Defeat Diabetes, an app- and web-based program, aimed at improving diabetes control through diet. His latest book The Diabetes Plan was published in March 2023.
In 2022 Peter was awarded a Doctor of Science honoris causa by La Trobe University and delivered the inaugural Peter Brukner Distinguished Lecture. He was recently awarded the 2023 Outstanding Contribution to Victorian Sport Award.
Show notes
Peter and I first met for lunch in April 2016 – with Dr Karim Khan – his co-author for Clinical Sports Medicine, which is the ‘bible’ for sports medicine. We then met at the Public Health Collaboration (PHC) conferences in 2017 (Manchester), 2018 (London) and 2019 (London again) and then Covid halted such events. We’ve met at conferences further afield too – notably Denver.
Peter came to stay with us in Wales in July 2019 (Dr Nina Teicholz was with us at the same time, so we had a multi-continent low carb gathering). He then super kindly gave my cricket-mad brother tickets to the England vs Australia world cup cricket match on July 11th, 2019, at Edgbaston. England won by 8 wickets, so he was probably better off not going anyway!
I opened by asking how, when and why Peter got into the diet and health field and I had the best reply to that question ever – a complete chronology starting 12 years ago when Peter thought his health was OK, but it wasn’t. A mutual friend of ours, Professor Tim Noakes, had just started saying low fat high carb is all wrong – it should be the other way round. Peter thought Tim was mad but took his own bloods, tried low carb high fat for himself and the podcast details his astounding results.
Peter shared a few anecdotes of other conditions that have been alleviated with a Keto diet – in national team level athletes and lay people. As a doctor, he considers the LCHF diet to be the most powerful weapon he has in his toolkit.
Peter explained how SugarByHalf started and also Defeat Diabetes. He had some very positive news to share about recent developments with Diabetes Australia and how this has helped to give credibility to the low carb option for diabetes in his country.
We explored the obstacles that we have both faced during our years of working in this field and how frustrating it is that we have these battles when the solution to diabetes (a condition of carbohydrate intolerance) is so obvious.
Australia has hosted a parliamentary inquiry into diet and diabetes recently. Peter gave evidence to the committee and met with the members during the process. The report has been disappointing to say the least. As for the future, we both think that individuals will continue to take control of their own heath, but this is frustratingly slow when top down changes to dietary guidelines could transform health, weight and diabetes so much more effectively. If only…
