My Life without Bread: Dr Lutz at 90

“Contented patients – patients whose symptoms abate and the many who go on to achieve lasting health – are reward enough for a physician,” so said a remarkable yet modest Austrian doctor who courageously championed an unorthodox treatment over half a lifetime. Who was this doctor with such grit and determination? What inspired him to develop a successful healing program with little recourse to drugs or surgery? And what was this intriguing treatment, so simple and effective, so eminently suited to the workings of our body and that stood the test of time? From being a medical scientist and inventor, the late Dr Wolfgang Lutz became a consultant in internal medicine in Ried and then in Salzburg. Turning his inventive brain to everyday medicine, Wolfgang Lutz explored the idea of a ‘carbohydrate effect', namely the possibly detrimental effect of an overload of sugars and starches on our health. From the late 1950s, Dr Lutz pioneered the use of low carbohydrate nutrition in the treatment of a wide range of ailments – conditions such as Crohn's disease, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, obesity, glandular disorders, gastrointestinal problems, osteoarthritis, cardiac insufficiency, high and low levels of iron and calcium in the blood, and more – with astonishing results. My Life without Bread offers a treasure trove of observation, information and advice borne of long clinical experience. In it, Wolfgang Lutz looks back over his life as a clinical physician: we follow him step by step as he describes what inspired him in the first place and as he details the lessons he learned during his many years of restricting the sugar and starch intake of his patients. We learn of the benefits but also of the occasional drawbacks of this way of eating which he encountered during this time. A fascinating, challenging and important story, My Life without Bread is an easy to read page-turner, written for the layman. An essential guide for those wishing to understand more about this controversial topic! Read more