Dr Malcolm Mackay – General medical practice and lifestyle medicine
Dr Malcolm Mackay is a General Practitioner with more than 30 years of experience in medical practice. He has a broad range of skills across the full spectrum of general practice. His practice is based at Clinicare, Fitzroy, Melbourne. He also provides Telehealth consultations for patients from other regions of Australia.
Dr Mackay has a special interest in preventing and managing chronic disease with whole foods plant-based nutrition and other evidence-based lifestyle interventions. He is co-author of a website providing information and resources for those interested in this approach and is active in social media. Malcolm and his nutritionist partner Jenny host seminars and webinars and often speak at public and private events.
Future events:
- One day plant-based nutrition seminar: next seminar 16th February 2020
- 6-day Plant-based health immersion retreat, 23rd to 28th February 2020
Services
Medical:
- Consultations (in person)
- Telehealth consultations (within Australia)
Educational:
- Nutrition one-day seminars
- Nutrition & liefstyle immersion retreats
- Workplace nutrition programs
- Webinars
- Available for speaking events
Qualifications & Training
Medical degree
- BMBS – Flinders University (1984)
Additional training
- Graduate Diploma in Human Nutrition – Deakin University (1993)
- Board Certified Lifestyle Medicine Physician (IBLM)
- Plant Based Nutrition Certificate – eCornell
- Certificate of Sports Medicine (ASMF/RACGP)
Professional affiliations
- Fellow of the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine
- Doctors for Nutrition – GP Resources Advisor
- GP Affiliate, Monash University
Recent conferences
- International Plant-Based Nutrition Healthcare Conference USA, September 2019
- Awarded Fellowship at the Australasian Society of Lifestyle Medicine Conference, Auckland, June 2019
- Doctors For Nutrition Conference, Melbourne, February 2019 (workshop presenter)
- Veg and Vines Lifestyle Medicine Conference, Gisbourne NZ, January 2019 (conference presenter)
Media presentations
- Dr Malcolm Mackay [and Jenny]: Animal Protein & Oils – interview with the High Carb Health team at the Veg And Vines Lifestyle Medicine Conference, New Zealand, January 2019
- Dr Malcolm Mackay Gives Us The Plant Based Low Down – interview with Corinne Nijjer, February 2018
- Is a Whole Food Plant-Based Diet The Answer to Chronic Disease? 2017 Documentary – interview with four plant-based doctors, including Dr Malcolm Mackay, July 2017
- Dr Malcolm Mackay on practicing lifestyle medicine, fitness and supervising me! interview with Andrew ‘Spud Fit’ Taylor, May 2017
For more information about whole foods plant based nutrition, visit my other website and associated Facebook page:
An article in Melbourne’s Age newspaper today is an example of how even when something negative is reported about an animal product, the discussion dismisses the finding and flips the issue around into something positive about it. ‘Our diet the flip side of the egg debate’ reported a review in the American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine on the increase in industry-funded egg studies from “none in 1950s to 60 per cent of research conducted between 2010 and 2019”.
The journalist presented the story as a two-sided debate – “comical claims that eating an egg a day is equivalent to smoking five cigarettes” (a criticism directed at the film What The Health) versus the saturated fat and cholesterol advocates. She claimed that the 2015 USA dietary guidelines removed the cap on dietary cholesterol. What the guidelines actually said was, “individuals should eat as little dietary cholesterol as possible while consuming a healthy eating pattern”.
A nutritionist informed us that cholesterol is “an essential substance with several functions in the body” and said that “eggs are a non-issue” and a distraction from more important issues. A medical expert said that the body’s ability to absorb cholesterol from the gut was more important than the amount of cholesterol in the diet and that this ability is inherited and we can do no more than eat plant sterols to reduce the absorption. He did not seem to have considered the possibility that one could eat a plant-based diet and there would be zero dietary cholesterol to absorb.
The final paragraph concluded that dietary cholesterol can be good in the right amounts because it supports essential bodily functions. This is nonsense because the body manufactures all the cholesterol it needs and there is no dietary requirement for cholesterol. What wasn’t reported was that the review article found the majority of the research studies, regardless of funding sources, showed that eggs have unfavourable effects on blood cholesterol... “However, 49% of industry-funded intervention studies reported conclusions that were discordant with study results (ie, net cholesterol increases were described as favorable in the articles’ stated conclusions), compared with 13% of non–industry-funded studies.” See review article -https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1559827619892198 (NB full text is not open access)
Here is a link to our Eggs FAQ from 2018 where we discuss egg industry funded research - www.wholefoodsplantbasedhealth.com.au/resources/faq/eggs-health-research/