A few dance steps from Christophe Dechavanne, Gabriel Attal’s college romance with Joyce Jonathan and in the middle, a host of scientific untruths. This Saturday, January 27, Léa Salamé received on the show What an era! (France 2, 11:10 p.m.) Frédéric Saldmann, doctor and successful writer. The media regular had to reveal his tips for living longer. What also ensures the promotion of Your future on prescription, his 17th work.
If the prescriptions of the “celebrity doctor”, with a short acting career and a successful agri-food consulting business, captivated his audience, they were strongly criticized online, notably by several of his colleagues. The author states, for example, “that in three weeks of vacation, we lose 20 intelligence quotient points.” A “disaster” he says, without supporting. However, and despite the specialist’s confidence, there is no indication in the scientific literature that there is a consensus on such an effect, which did not fail to provoke a reaction from many specialists on social networks.
The statement actually seems far-fetched to say the least, when we know what it represents: “20 IQ points less is a loss comparable to certain brain lesions. We can lose as much with Alzheimer’s, for example, but it takes years”, specifies Franck Ramus, specialist in cognition, director of research at the CNRS and columnist for L’Express. Nothing, apart from serious pathologies, causes such a variation, assures the researcher. If being idle can affect motivation or performance, the intellect remains intact. Taking a vacation doesn’t make you stupid. The word is however used by a conquered Léa Salamé.
The opposite of what science says
In this sequence, particularly commented on The person concerned is a big defender of food deprivation, which has been all the rage in recent years. The science, although fragmented on the subject, nevertheless points to the opposite of what he says. Published in 2021 in Current Nutrition Report, a systematic analysis carried out by American and English specialists on the basis of twenty studies – the most rigorous – highlights “cognitive deficits” linked to the practice, without concluding any benefits. It’s hard to think on an empty stomach.
Ayatollah of fasting, Dr. Saldmann is used to making unfounded remarks on the subject. “Fasting coincides with an elevation of the spirit: it is a way of feeling good in one’s body, of regenerating one’s physical and spiritual health”, he writes for example in You are never better cared for than by yourselfpublished in 2020. If food deprivation does indeed lead to a kind of euphoria, there is no indication that it has any therapeutic effects, as L’Express already pointed out in February 2023. But it is true, on the other hand, that sticking to a frugal, balanced and varied meal is good for your health.
In What an era!and in his books, Dr. Saldmann nevertheless speaks of fasting as “the best cure detox” which is: “This makes it possible to eliminate the junk that we store, which are eternal contaminants”. Problem: eternal contaminants cannot by definition be eliminated by the body. As for the concept of “detox”, it does not make scientific sense. The body is naturally capable of eliminating toxins – this is even one of the roles of the liver and kidneys. If poisoning occurs despite the functioning of these two vital organs, nothing indicates that skipping a meal does not help.
Sex, almost youth in Saldmann
Another Saldmann-style tip: make love! A dozen times a month. Enough to make Christophe Dechavanne and comedian Redouane Bougheraba, guests that evening, hilarious – and keep death at bay, according to the doctor. Except that, again, nothing tangible on a scientific level. In 2017, Australian researchers followed around 1,000 70-year-old volunteers for five years to find out whether the absence of sexual activity, caused in particular by erectile dysfunction, was a factor in morbidity. The response, published in The Journals of Gerontologyis no.
As with fasting, in reality, no scientific consensus exists on this subject. Gaining ten years would mean that the effect on health would be particularly significant. But science is far from being as enthusiastic. If the act is obviously beneficial, at least for mood and general well-being, and if certain studies do record a correlation between sexuality and longevity, the causal link between the two phenomena remains to be demonstrated.
Clumsy popularization or misinterpretation? Although a scientific bibliography is provided at the end of Dr Saldmann’s books, some of his assertions raise questions. In 2022, the scientific collective L’Extracteur, specialized in the fight against pseudoscience, made the list. “The sacrum massage helps release the energy of this chakra”, “the sound waves emitted by your cat have a frequency very close to that of physiotherapy devices and will relieve your osteo-articular pain”, we can read in You are never better cared for than by yourself.
More people than scientists?
So many deviations from scientific rigor that the doctor, nicknamed the “guru of All-Paris” by Vanity Fair in 2015, assumes. “People are anxious, they are wary of labs, they think that they might not have a pension, they won’t have the means to treat themselves. I tell them: ‘Become your own health entrepreneur’,” explained -he in the monthly. The method, which is also found in personal development, would have attracted Bernard Tapie, Jack Lang, Claude Lelouch and even François Hollande into his cabinet.
Too bad, if one of its mantras, “disease, evil to say”, is close to pseudoscientific currents, such as the sacred feminine or raw foodism, which would like us to be responsible for the pathologies that we contract and that they could be heal through a simple change of mindset. If all the stars are crazy about him, and each of his books sells tens of thousands of copies, how could he be wrong? A very strange idea of the scientific process.
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