Discussion Board

This forum is here to provide you with an opportunity to ask general questions about diet and health from one of our health experts (Dr Matt, Dr Alona, Jeff etc.). However, as this is a public message forum, they cannot comment specifically on anyone's individual health situation.

It is important to note that this is an open forum. Therefore, you may find other forum members responding to your questions and even making recommendations and/or give advice. While we understand that they may be well-meaning and good-intentioned responses, we cannot endorse any response, recommendation and/or advice from anyone outside our designated experts. Therefore, we ask you to use caution before considering using any advice or recommendations that do not come from the forum experts, as it may not be in your best interest to follow it.

Unfortunately, some members have seen these other recommendations as coming from and/or being endorsed by Dr McDougall and the McDougall program, of which they weren't. This creates confusion, especially for newcomers and can result in forum members following unproven and potentially harmful advice under the guise it is "McDougall" approved. While we know most all of you have only the best interest of this program and others at heart, we all know that we do have members who have joined with other ulterior motives and can give advice which is confusing and potentially harmful.

Now, often times, many members have been very helpful and will respond to a question by providing a link to a previous answer of ours, or a McDougall article and/or newsletter before the expert has time to respond. These actions are very helpful and encouraged.

We do encourage discussions on various health topics amongst the forum members, but ask that forum members refrain from giving advice in the forums designated for one of our experts. Please remember, there is a clear and distinct difference between discussing and sharing ones own personal experience, which is from the perspective of, "this is what I do" or "this is what worked for me", and the giving of advice, which is from the perspective of, "this is what you should do" or "this is what I think you should do".

We appreciate the members sharing their experience and their success, however, we are asking members not to give advice in this forums. This is not whether your advice is sound or not, but that there is no way for us to help other forum member determine which advice is sound or not, outside the expert. This is why the expert forums were created. If you engage in the latter and not the former, you will most likely hear from the moderator and/or have your post edited or deleted.

So, to clarify, while we are not discouraging the "discussion" of health issues in these forums, we are discouraging the dispensing of health advice in these forums from anyone other than the forum expert.

updated 2/9/2010

Welcome to all the new users of this forum. I am glad to see the recent and continuing influx of users.

If you have not done so yet, please read the announcements carefully, including this one.

In addition, familiarize yourself with the discussions listed under the Hot Topics and under the My Favorite Threads as you will most likely find the answers to many of your questions there.

General discussion should be posted in the Lounge.

In Health
Jeff