Paleo/Primal Friendly Doctors in SF Bay Area

September 24, 2010 11:06 AM

Any Paleo/Primal eaters in SF Bay Area know of a primary care doctor that 'gets it'?

I'm looking for a primary care physician in the San Francisco bay area that won't give me a blank stare when I describe my diet and most importantly, won't just try sticking me on statins simply because my total cholesterol number is above 200.

Since modifying my diet and doing a lot of research on this topic, I have a clear idea as to how misleading the standard lipid panel can be. During my last physical I had to cajole my Dr. into a VAP test, which came back with low trigs and LDL that was solidly type A. I still got the "we should consider statins" tripe.

So, time to find a new doctor.

posted by mcschmidt00 to Health & Fitness (8 answers total)

I totally concur with ShootTheMoon, but no matter what your weight, you may wish to find a physician who is known to be fat-positive or endorse a "healthy at any size" approach. There are tons of directories of them on the 'net, and I suspect they may be more sympathetic than most.
posted by julthumbscrew at 11:53 AM on September 24, 2010

Response by poster: Thanks, but I wasn't asking for a debate on the merits or scientific validity of Paleo/Primal dieting. And I sure as hell wasn't looking for snarky remarks. If you'd like to have such a debate you can try these places:

http://www.marksdailyapple.com/
http://thehealthyskeptic.org/
http://www.proteinpower.com/forum/

Go there and flame away, just not on my thread, thanks.
posted by mcschmidt00 at 12:12 PM on September 24, 2010 [6 favorites]

Maybe try asking someone who works at a health food store?
posted by MexicanYenta at 12:15 PM on September 24, 2010

You may want to ask someplace like the Crossfit forums or Robb Wolf's blog, where there are a bunch of people invested in paleo and your odds are better of finding someone who has had this issue - unless there's a GP who's actively pimping paleo to his patients, it's not likely that non-paleo folk would know what their doctor thinks about it.
posted by restless_nomad at 12:24 PM on September 24, 2010

Came in to suggest Crossfit/Robb Wolf communities to try, but it's here already. Another community linked to this is Whole 9 but I'm not sure of whether there's a place to ask that. I found that my Osteopathic trained physician gets it. That might not help totally, but it might be another way to filter out folks by their orientation.
posted by kch at 2:30 PM on September 24, 2010

You could me-mail melissam, based on this comment. She may be plugged into a broader palaeo community or have advice to share.
posted by Rumple at 4:55 PM on September 24, 2010

Try asking the comment community here.
posted by Leta at 7:54 PM on September 24, 2010

I like this place a lot: www.noeclinic.com. It's "semi-boutique" (you pay $150/year to be able to make same-day appointments and email your doctor), but I think it's worth it. I am not a strict paleo/primal guy, but I'm doing a month-long paleo stint right now, and I'm pretty familiar with the health considerations. I see this guy: https://www.noeclinic.com/sf/doctors#/?provider=Spencer_Blackman. He isn't extremely knowledgeable about paleo/primal specifically, but he is very smart, and I had a long and interesting conversation with him about diet, which delved into paleo, my previous history of vegetarianism, vap/nmr tests, etc. When I told him I wanted an NMR lipoprofile he initially asked me some standard (albeit smart) doctor-type questions, like what the point of the test would be, given that there is not extensive clinical data supporting its use in guiding health care decisions, and I pushed back a little bit, saying I just wanted to know what my results were. We discussed further and traded some articles/links via email and he ordered the test for me. I have no idea what he would say about the total cholesterol/statin issue, but I highly recommend him, and I think he is open to supporting well researched and thought out individual lifestyle choices, like your decision to go paleo.
posted by holympus at 11:32 PM on September 24, 2010