'Health-illiterate boomer uncle': Liver Doc clashes with Sridhar Vembu over benefits of walking barefoot

Kerala-based hepatologist Dr Cyriac Abby Philips aka The Liver Doc; (right) Zoho co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu.

Liver specialist and clinician-scientist Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, popularly known as "The Liver Doctor" on social media, has picked up a fight with billionaire Zoho co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu for promoting walking barefoot. While the Kerala-based doctor called Vembu a "health illiterate" for "peddling pseudoscience to your large followers," the Zoho boss stuck to his ground and asked his followers to be wary of "arrogant doctors".

It started when Vembu revealed that he has been walking barefoot in the farms of his remote Govindapperi village of Tenkasi in Tamil Nadu for about a year and shared a thread on the health benefits of "grounding" or walking barefoot, on X. "It is easy to do, doesn't cost anything and isn't harmful - our rural people have been doing it for ages. So I reasoned why not try it and I got so used to it by now I don't even think about it. Try it!" he wrote.

This did not sit well with Dr Philips who has previously also called out celebrities including actors Samantha Ruth Prabhu for promoting health fads not supported by science and medicine.

"Grounding or Earthing (via bare-foot walking) is a pseudoscientific practice. It has no clinically relevant benefits. There are a lot of absolutely nonsense wasteful studies on this topic that has contaminated the published literature," the doctor shared on X. "Indian healthcare's biggest challenge lies not in teaching people critical-thinking skills, but in educating and training the common person how to avoid health-illiterate boomer uncles like Mr. Vembu."

Grounding or Earthing (via bare-foot walking) is a pseudoscientific practice. It has no clinically relevant benefits. There are a lot of absolutely nonsense wasteful studies on this topic that has contaminated the published literature.
The act of grounding refers to a physical pic.twitter.com/CsR0gA0Bzt TheLiverDoc (@theliverdr) August 25, 2024

Responding to this, Vembu called The Liver Doc arrogant and asked his followers to stay away from such doctors. "Stay away from arrogant doctors - that is the best health tip I can give anyone," he wrote. "The best doctors I know are all uniformly humble because they know just how extremely complex the human body is and how much the body and mind are intertwined. They also know accepted medical wisdom keeps changing so they keep an open mind. And great doctors don't do stupid name calling about people they don't know."

This prompted Dr Philips to write a biting retort. "Sridhar Uncle, maybe this is a more humble way of telling you, dont post content you have no idea about? Leave doctors and healthworkers to do what they have to do, including demystifying misinformation from science-illiterates like yourself. Stick to Zoho and your tech stuff? Is that too much to ask? Or was that not humble enough? Leave healthcare to those who are trained in it," he wrote.

The doctor also shared a research paper published by the National Library of Medicine--an official website of the US government--which stated that "walking with minimalist shoes appeared to be associated with better gait performance than walking barefoot" in both young and elderly people.

Requesting the tech billionaire to "stop peddling nonsense", Dr Philips added, "Health illiterates like you, peddling pseudoscience to your large followers are increasing workload on practicing doctors like me [who are exhaustingly trying to improve public health education], by adding more fuel to the misinformation fire that is already lit high by other health influenzas across this country."

In rebuttal, Vembu said that he read a book based on "extensive research on running, in particular barefoot running" that prompted him to ditch shoes. "Now I am mostly barefoot except when I travel. There is a fair amount of evidence presented in that book," he wrote. In a separate post, he added that he is a "science illiterate" who has a PhD in Electrical Engineering and knows how to read a research paper and "also know that most published papers are bogus".

"The body is a bio electrical system. This idea of grounding is at least scientifically plausible. That is why I said 'I do It, try it for yourself'--I stand by it. Covid should tell us to beware of credentialed arrogance in the medical establishment that Liverdoc perfectly illustrates. Health is way too important for us to leave to arrogant doctors," Vembu wrote in what he described was his last post on the topic.

The liverdoc writes "Leave doctors and healthworkers to do what they have to do, including demystifying misinformation from science-illiterates like yourself."This is the exact arrogance I am talking about. As Covid demonstrated perfectly well, very good doctors disagreed with Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) August 25, 2024

On the other hand, Dr Philips wrote in his concluding post that he opposed the Zoho CEO's views "strongly because Mr. Vembu is a serial misinformation offender and anti-vaxxer".

"I had schooled him nicely and humbly the first time on hepatitis B. Repeat offenders require strong handed responses and so I did exactly that, because misinformation peddlers deserve it. Instead of correcting himself or showing me the contrary, Mr. Vembu, the 55th richest Indian and a billionaire providing employment to 100s of 1000s of people, called me an arrogant doctor, trying to dehumanise me in front of his circle-jerking echo chamber members," the doctor said. "Don't be like Mr. Vembu. Don't be agnorant. Arrogant and ignorant. Be open to correcting mistakes. I do it and have done it many times. I am a doctor. I live to defend public health unlike some Princeton billionaires who look forward to misinforming many."