Just got this e-mail today. It’s quite representative of the kinds of problems I deal with, i.e. severe gastroenterocolitis related to enzymatic deficiency, inadequate acidity, etc.

=== Message begins:

Dear Konstantin,

I started six monts ago a low-carb lifestyle, not to loose weight (i was 65 kg. for 173 cm. before starting the diet, so I haven’t so much wwight to loose), but just to get rid of my stomach pain, gastritis and heartburn.

I’d already read Norm Robillard’s book (“Heartburn cured”) so I decided to try a low-carb diet. It worked, at the beginning, and for months: my stomach was very well and my heartburn, after years, suddenly disappeared.

These months I’ve become free of pasta, pizza, bread and so on, and I’ve lost 7-8 kg. Now I am 57 kg. Since 2-3 weeks, unfortunately, I’ve started to experience abdominal pain, pain pressing my belly (everywhere), the pain is spread also in my lower back (right and left) and is sometimes like a pinprick.

For these reasons I think my bowel is involved.

I eat a very low fiber diet, but I’m thinking to give up my low-carb diet, that could be the culprit.

Obviously I’m not looking for a diagnosis via e-mail, but, since I’ve read about many low-carbers suffering conditions like IBS or colitis, I’m just curiously wondering whether (and why) a low-carb diet could imply these consequences.

Any ideas?

==== message ends…

Hope this will give you a better context to my non-dogmatic dietary advice…

This meant as a private message to you. Please don’t post it for general viewing. Unfortunately, I don’t know your e-mail to communicate it privately.

Thank you for taking time to reviewing my messages.

Konstantin Monastyrsky

Just one more brief comments to my previous e-mail:

We had published Fiber Menace the way we did not because of “greed and avarice,” but because I couldn’t find any takers for this controversial subject among the top tier publishers. If you believe Fiber Menace is meritorious and deserves a larger audience, please put me in touch with your publisher. It (the publishing company) would be much more receptive to your recommendation than to my cold solicitation. Obviously, they can then edit up/down Fiber Menace as much as they like – I am easy to work with in that regard.

Thank you again,

Konstantin Monastyrsky

Thank you very much for your comments, and I appreciate you taking time to answer my question. In my defense I can say this:

1. Fiber Menace is about digestive disorders, not dieting per se, and my recommendation aren’t addressed to people with weight loss issue or metabolic syndrome, or seeking general diet advise, but for people with severe gastroenterocolitis, IBS, IBD, UC, Crohn’s, celiac disease, and so on. Tis is clearly stated on the cover: Fiber Menace: The Truth About the Leading Role of Fiber in Diet Failure, Constipation, Hemorrhoids, Irritable Bowel Syndrome, Ulcerative Colitis, Crohn’s Disease, and Colon Cancer.

Please, put yourself in my shoes, and ask yourself: Would I, Dr. Eades, advise a patient with any of the above conditions to assume the kind of diet I am enjoying, i.e. eggs and bacon in the morning, red wine for dinner, some desserts, etc… Of course, not.
True, from the Protein Power’s paradigm, Fiber Menace may come accross as inconsistent. That’s why when people ask me for low-carb diet advise, I recommend them to read your book, not Fiber Menace.

2. In regard to Fiber Menace being overwritten: You are a highly experienced physician with in-depth understanding of subject matter and stratospheric I.Q.. For you (and for me too) — Fiber Menace is ideed overwritten because it wasn’t written for doctors or nutritionists, but for general public, people who still believe that fiber is manna from heaven. On top, I am still getting e-mails daily with questions like this: “Dr. Monastyrsky, but what are carbohydrates?”… So I try to be as explicit as possible to make it stick…

Unfortunately, your comments about “bad editing,” no matter how well meant or intended, turned a lot of people away from Fiber Menace because they trust your opinion, and rightfully so they equate “bad editing” with “bad information”… So I was hoping a person of your stature would endorse it’s on substance, rather than would criticize its form, consider all those kids and adults who are suffering so badly from all of the conditions covered by Fiber Menace.

I am still hoping you’ll reconsider your initial reaction, and will use your unique position, authority, and credibility to let as many people, particularly in the media, to know about Fiber Menace. All things considered, reading an overwritten book beats losing life or colon to ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, or colon cancer. I pray for those people every day, and I wrote this book for them.

After all that, just Imagine how I feel reading about myself: “Intelligent people can be so stupid” just because I advise people with acute gastroenterocolitis to stay off proteins until remission (a standard protocol, BTW), and restrict proteins to just one meal a day to remain in remission.

Please use your influence to let others, particulary people in the media, about Fiber Menace. If between two of us we can save just one child from getting affected by autism, or one adults from succumbing to Crohn’s, it will be worth our respective effort many times over.

Thank you again,

Konstantin Monastyrsky

Thank you again,

Konstantin Monastyrsky

There are basically three things that editors do. They correct faulty grammar and ensure that English usage is proper; they look for inconsistencies and contradictions in the text; and they try to eliminate or at least tone down overwriting. (They do other things as well such as recommending different opening paragraphs, changes in wording, etc. but for our purposes, let’s just look at these three.)

MRE

Thank again you for your comments and good wishes. It’s unfortunate that this debate spilled into public realm, but I am happy to learn that you are sincere, open-minded, and brutally honest. That’s all that really counts.

Over the next several months I’ll be developing a video course about weight loss related-issues, and am looking forward to hearing your feedback. This course will address technical aspects of low-carb dieting (i.e. constipation, appetite reduction, hypoglycemia, fatigue, indigestion, anemia, halitosis, dehydration, etc..) more than the dieting itself, because this subject is already well covered by you and other authors.

There are several reasons I am switching to video format rather than book format: First, because I can. Second — younger audience prefers seeing and hearing to reading. Third, a lot of people with weight issues are also affected by ADD/HD, and video format simply works better for them. Finally, it’s much faster to produce, can be released in increments and more fun.

If you believe I can contribute my videos/articles to you blog, I’ll be honored to do so, and am hoping we’ll become good friends and close collaborators, not adversaries.
I am sorry again for approaching your comments with prejudices, and sincerely apologies for some things I’ve said for dramatic effect. A little earlier I contacted Dr. Bernstein seeking guidance on fiber-diabetes connection, and he treated me with incredible rudeness and contempt. That, I guess, made me oversensitive to your remarks about my book, hence I overreacted.

Thank you again,

Konstantin Monastyrsky

No problem. No offense taken. Sorry you had a bad experience with Dr. Bernstein – he’s usually a pretty nice guy.

MRE

Well, a good third of Fiber Menace’s content is available on the Internet, so readers can make up their own mind about its editing.

In regard to major publishers: You know as well I do that I can’t get published by a major publisher because they don’t work with non-fiction authors who lack celebrity or notoriety. It has nothing to do with content, and everything with money-making. That’s their business model, and I am not the one to go nuts altering it.

So, “self-publishing” was the only possible venue for Fiber Menace. That said, I am working hard in attaining name recognition, and, at this point, it’s only a matter of time – I switched over to English-language marketing only recently, just six months ago, and released my web site only four weeks ago. That’s how (by going over report logs) I came across your comments about my book.

In regard to weight loss: I stand by my calculation and methodology. They are derived from physiology textbooks, my Russian-language titles about weight loss, and my own practical experience with thousands of clients over the last eight years.

In my experience, only few people – mainly tall and healthy man, and tall and healthy women under 40 attain consistent weight on Atkins-style diet. The rest – don’t, unless they exercise daily, and keep VLC diet.

The Atkins diet was a profound failure, and the subject of my yet unpublished book Fixing Up The Atkins Diet. Dr. Atkins death killed its publication back in 2003, and, at this time, “major publishers” have zero interest in releasing this title. The third chapter of Fiber Menace provides a detailed math for phantom weight loss experience by people, who follow Atkins regimen, and it’s available on my site (i.e. FiberMenace.com).

I appreciate you recommending my book. I’ve been recommending Protein Power to my Russian-language readers, listeners, and viewers for years.

Thank you again for your detailed response,

Konstantin Monastyrsky, author of Fiber Menace

I don’t agree that people with no notoriety or celebrity can’t get published by the mainstream publishers. When I wrote my first book I was a totally unknown doctor practicing in Arkansas before Bill Clinton put Arkansas on the map. I had absolutely no celebrity whatsoever. So it can be done.

MRE

For what it’s worth, have a decency to name those “dubious claims and assertions without any real substations” instead of making innuendoes based on, as you said, your “meager and limited knowledge.”

Go figure — you agree with my book “main premise” but the book itself is “dubious…”

It sounds like old Soviet Union: “I don’t know who that darn Sakharov (a famous dissident), but I hate everything he stands for…”

Great argument — “This guy is right about everything, but he is a jerk…” Lovely!

Smarts like you compromise Dr. Eades reputation, not my book.

Konstantin Monastyrsky

Here is a list of posts in which your comments on Fiber Menace appeared in the comments section. Mainly, you were critical of the poor editing, but also spoke of contradictory and inaccurate information.

http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/bougainvillea-in-bloom/
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/statins/646/
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/fisking-repovich-and-peterson/
http://www.proteinpower.com/drmike/uncategorized/still-in-internet-hell/

FYI, here is a google trick. Type the following into google and you can search the site including comments:

“fiber menace” site:proteinpower.com/drmike

I didn’t think you were “exceptionally nasty”, just typically blunt, which is one of the things I enjoy about this blog.

Thanks for the search tip. I didn’t realize I had commented on the book once let alone four times.

MRE

I had no plans to start this public debate, but couldn’t locate contact information on your site. That said, I appreciate you commenting on my post rather then deleting it. People keep pestering me with your comments about “bad editing,” which you can easily google (30. March 2007, 16:13).

Here is what you wrote:

Dr. Eades: “As I mentioned in an earlier comment to a comment, this book is poorly edited, and so, for me, at any rate, a real pain to read.”

— Fiber Menace was edited by an editor from The New Yorker Magazine, and edited again by an author of English-language textbooks. Since English is my second language, I invested a great deal of money to make sure it is, indeed, well edited.

Fiber Menace isn’t self-published. It’s published by Ageless Press, a small press owned by my wife, who was a senior executive at one of the largest publishers in the world. That insinuation – that somehow a book which wasn’t published be Penguin or Simon and Shuster is second rate isn’t welcome and offensive to all professionals, invloved in its release.

Also, consider all those people with IBS, ulcerative colitis, Crohn’s disease, diverticulosis, and so on who could have benefited from reading my book following your advice, had you chosen to be more generous. Consider measuring your “pain to read” against their real pain and suffering.

Regarding Atkins:

Dr. Eades: “I’m fairly certain (based on experience with other such patients) that at the end he probably had total organ failure (including renal failure) which added to the fluid retention problem.

- Water retention in excess of 50-60 lb on IV feed in a hospital settings, with nothing by mouth? In top teaching hospital in NYC? Do you mean to imply that their trauma team was so incompetent, that it would pump up a dying patient with fluids to that extent?

Dr. Eades: “As a result Dr. Atkins gained massive fluid weight in the hospital, which unscrupulous people used to malign him after his death.”

— Do you mean to imply that the pathologist, who performed Atkins postmortem was “unscrupulous,” and that The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times reprinted his lies?

Dr. Eades: “And, as I recall, it badmouthed low-carb diets as I would prescribe them in pretty non-equivocal terms.”

Fiber Menace, page 255: “Assuming you won’t be rushing to replace these excluded carbohydrates with refined sugar, fruit juices, and soft drinks, your diet will become not just low in fiber, but decidedly low in carbs as well. Thus, serendipitously, you’ll be accruing the benefits of a low-carb diet, too.”

Fiber Menace, page 264: “The adoption of a low-fiber diet coincides with a significantly reduced consumption of dietary carbohydrates (low-carb diet). Low-carb diets are an effective preventative for cardiovascular and endocrine disorders, including diabetes and obesity.”

What else can I add?

Konstantin Monastyrsky

The credentials of the person editing the book are immaterial ot the argument at hand. Either the book is poorly edited or it isn’t irrespective of who edited it. And I think it is poorly edited. That’s my opinion. I commend you for hiring an editor – I just don’t believe you got your money’s worth.