Frank Lipman

Frank Lipman (born 1954) is a South African celebrity doctor, acupuncturist and alternative medicine advocate who resides in New York. He is a promoter of functional medicine.

Biography

Lipman took interest in herbal medicine and homeopathy whilst in Africa and started to practice acupuncture during his residency in the South Bronx in the United States. His clients have included Maggie Gyllenhaal, Donna Karan and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Lipman has been criticized for making arguments against swine flu vaccination.

Dieting

Lipman is a believer in detoxification and claims to do "three or four cleanses a year". He has stated that "gluten and sugar are the devil" and takes his patients off gluten even if they do not have wheat sensitivity, as he claims that gluten causes inflammation in the body. He advocates a low-carbohydrate high-fat diet consisting of grass-fed animal source foods with no grains and limited fruit, and has also promoted the paleo diet. He recommends grass-fed butter, goat and sheep's milk cheese and leafy vegetables.

Lipman disputes the current saturated fat guidelines and argues against low-fat diets. In a 2018 interview he said that "if the fat comes from nature, or if it’s made by God, it’s more than likely healthy for you" and "natural fats, avocados, coconut oil, meat from grass-fed animals, eggs, these are all good, healthy fats, and it’s only in the past 50 years that we fell into this low-fat ideology."

Lipman says that all people should take four daily supplements: multivitamin, vitamin D, omega-3 and probiotic. He recommends that people should supplement with 2,000 IU of vitamin D per day. Yvette d'Entremont has commented that magnesium deficiencies are rare and has criticized Lipman's advice as unreasonable. Lipman claims to be a "big proponent of intermittent fasting".

Selected publications