The 10 Craziest Health Trends of the Past 40 Years
A lot of great things have happened to our health since the 1970s (Running for fun! Plant-based diets! Personalized medicine!), but these 10 fads deserve to be left in the past.
By Emma Haak
Illustration: David Wyffels
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The KE Diet
The Idea: File this under the "They're doing what?!" health trend of 2012—the
KE Diet had followers getting small feeding tubes inserted into their noses to deliver a low-calorie solution with the promise of quick weight loss.
The Problem: Aside from the extreme nature of inserting a tube into your nose, you're consuming way too few calories and putting your body into a state of ketosis, where it relies on your fat stores for fuel to keep going, says Rebecca Scritchfield, RD, the founder of Capitol Nutrition Group in Washington, D.C. And while there are some circumstances where weight-loss via feeding tube may be medically recommended, "this is not for someone who's trying to lose weight to fit into a dress or bathing suit," Louise Aronne, MD, director of the Weight Management Center at Weill Cornell Medical Center says.
The Lesson: Do not resort to feeding tubes to drop a little extra weight.
Published 09/01/2015
