"Malakhov minus"
"Malakhov's treatment is obscurantism!"
Artem Lavrov, Express Newspaper, 26.08.2008
Gennady Petrovich's methods of recovery bring viewers to the hospital – says the famous cardiologist Anna Andronova.
Who among us has ever been interested in the transfer of "Malakhov"?
The kind eyes of the healer Gennady Malakhov, behind whom Elena Proklova looms with a benevolent smile, recipes for all diseases, positive comments from doctors – and all this is on Channel One! How can I not believe it? One of the central newspapers the other day joyfully declared: "Malakhov is the one everyone trusts! He will say – drink urine, we will drink, he will say – eat bird droppings, we will follow the advice!" Only these recommendations often go sideways to the audience.
The leaders of Channel One call Gennady Malakhov "an amazingly wise, interesting and positive person." And to the timid questions of journalists: "Why do doctors consider his show dangerous for health?" – They angrily answer: "Because they are probably watching it inattentively!" I managed to talk to one of such "inattentive" doctors from Nizhny Novgorod, a leading specialist of the NSCB No. 5 and a well-known publicist Anna Andronova. She came up with an apt name for the wellness TV show: "Malakhov minus".
Cleaned the liver? For surgery!
– After applying Malakhov's techniques, people get on the operating table! – Andronova stunned me. – This mostly happens after liver cleansing according to Malakhov. After all, the method of Gennady Petrovich is based on the use of vegetable oil, and it causes a contraction of the gallbladder. If there are stones in the bladder – people may not know this – then such shock doses, especially on an empty stomach, cause acute cholecystitis. An emergency surgery team is on duty in our hospital, doctors have saved a person more than once after such a "cleansing"! And the first cases were recorded when Malakhov's name had not yet sounded so widely. But this method was recommended to them in books that he has been publishing for a long time.
– What other examples can you give?
– One girl with sinusitis Malakhov strongly recommended making compresses out of honey. But honey, due to the property of warming up, causes activation of all processes. This is, in fact, physiotherapy, which is strictly contraindicated in the acute period of sinusitis. Using this advice, you can aggravate the disease, even earn meningitis!
One day my mom called me. She, a professional physicist, was outraged by Malakhov's delirium about changing the crystal lattice under the influence of certain charms and "bursting" of water. Actually, it was this call that made me pay attention to this program.
"Most of the national preventive project, declared by us as existing, should be occupied by propaganda, for which central channels are needed. Where is she? Instead – "Malakhov ", - Anna Alexandrovna is indignant
Recipes from the Middle Ages
– When a person is sick, he will believe in anything, – Anna Alexandrovna continues. – Including Malakhov with his charms and lunar days. When patients ask if it is possible to drink grass, do massage, do breathing exercises, I answer: it is possible, unless it is contraindicated for them. But only additional to the main treatment. So Malakhov should be shown: in the program "Health" with a three-minute heading "non-traditional methods of treatment".
Here's a funny example. My friend on duty attended a congress of psychics and folk healers. One of the forum participants had renal colic. It was not his colleagues who helped him, but the ambulance doctors. Against kidney stones, otherworldly forces were powerless!
– In one of your articles, you called Malakhov an obscurantist.
– I called his methods of treatment obscurantism. Most of his "advice" comes from the Middle Ages. And at all… How can you recommend something if you are not an expert in this field?! A person will drink "charged water", a decoction of herbs, smear with honey, and his illness will go to a stage when it will be impossible to help him! In addition, it is at least unethical to pull out sick people for review and treat them demonstratively.
– But no one forces them to become guinea pigs, after all…
– I agree. However, ordinary people are invited to the program, most often from the outback. For them, a trip to Moscow to watch TV is a whole event! And the organizers are playing great on this. But communication between a doctor and a patient is an intimate process. A real doctor, after listening to a person, will not immediately diagnose and prescribe treatment this second. And that's exactly what happens in this show. Viewers often try on this diagnosis for themselves, use recommendations to cure an ailment that they do not have, but just the symptoms are similar!
Of course, our healthcare system is also to blame here. Huge queues in polyclinics, an insufficient number of doctors are pushing people to self-medicate. One granny tells the other that she listened to Malakhov and it helped her. A friend takes the recipe and starts doing the same. She may even feel better – the power of autosuggestion! And perhaps her illness will even worsen, because what is useful to one can harm another! That's what's scary.
Doctors are decoy ducks?
– In the West, huge funds are invested in the prevention of diseases, the mortality rate from which is especially high. Our young people, for example, often have no idea what heredity is. If the father died of a heart attack at the age of 40, then there is a high probability that the son will face the same if he does not monitor his health. People need to be educated with the help of central TV channels, especially since the First One has the largest audience. But instead there are "Malakhov" ads for dietary supplements and yogurts that supposedly lower cholesterol levels in the blood.
– And what do you think should be shown?
– Once at a conference of cardiologists, I saw an educational film. A young businessman gets all the "pleasures" of life – he smokes expensive cigarettes, drinks beer, and consumes delicious high-calorie food in incredible quantities… And then we see what happens to him for five years. As he begins to get fat, shortness of breath appears, the skin turns yellow, pains begin. The film is very revealing, with a powerful psychological impact. If such pictures were shown instead of Malakhov with his lunar days, millions of people would stop ruining themselves with bad habits – smoking, gluttony, drunkenness! And all this should be elevated to the rank of a national project.
– Anna Alexandrovna, but doctors also take part in the program. They are invited to the studio, asked to comment on a particular treatment method…
– These comments sound very sluggish and brief. I admit that these are not real doctors, but decoy ducks. However, I remember a program where manipulations with rings and applying cabbage leaves were offered for headaches. There was a doctor there who bluntly said that you need to measure your blood pressure first and see a therapist! But his voice was not heard at all. And sometimes there's no one to tell! In the program about the benefits of watermelon, Malakhov confused concepts such as glucose and fructose. According to his statement, one is contained in the other. But these are completely different carbohydrates! He advised diabetics to consume watermelon in large quantities. In fact, you can't do this with diabetes! And it is impossible to "clean" the vessels – Malakhov has a lot of programs on this topic. I tell my patients all the time – vessels are not pipes, and we are not plumbers. If someone invents a means to help destroy atherosclerotic plaques, they will immediately receive a Nobel Prize.
– Malakhov, they say, has no medical education…
"That's the point! He is not a doctor, but a hyped writer. From my point of view, its transmission is just as harmful as beer advertising. For me, these are categories of the same row.