Dr Gary Fettke invites Orange residents to a discussion on health and the vested interests shaping our lives

A Tasmanian orthopaedic surgeon who has taken the processed food and pharmaceutical industries to task over the part he believes they are playing in the decline of the population's health, Dr Fettke will visit Orange next month to visit an old friend.

"To pay for his supper", while catching up with local exercise physiologist and sports scientist Richard Turnbull, Dr Fettke will host a conversation on health and what he describes as the 'factory farming' of consumers by an industry "that doesn't want to be cured".

It's a talk Dr Fettke, an advocate for the part nutrition plays in the prevention and management of disease, says could go down a number of rabbit holes depending on the audience.

"The simple thing is metabolic health: 93 per cent of people now have poor metabolic health," he said.

"If we strip that figure back, the single most reversible factor of that is what you eat. If you're empowered to know what to eat, literally, I can get rid of your type 2 diabetes in a couple of days.

"That's where we will start."

A staunch advocate for reducing ultra-processed food in the diet, particularly carbohydrates, Dr Fettke recommends a nutrient-rich low carb healthy fat or Keto lifestyles.

He lives by a simple one-sentence dietary guideline: eat fresh, local, seasonal whole food based on your culture and environment, avoiding added sugar and processed food.

"I've got good metabolic health after having poor metabolic health," the 59 year grand father said.

"I had issues with cancer, had pre-diabetes, I've lost 20kg so I was obese, had high-blood pressure, 12 years ago I had poor metabolic health, I was the classic person trying to outrun a bad diet."

For background, in 2014, Dr Fettke became targeted by the processed food industry for his opinion on the perils of excessive sugar consumption and was reprimanded by the Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Authority for giving dietary advice to his patients.

He has since been cleared by AHPRA with an apology.

The advice Dr Fettke gave his patients came from the heart. As an orthopaedic surgeon he was becoming increasingly frustrated by patients battling what he believes in most cases was a completely reversible condition.

He estimates two third of his patients who changed their diet changed their health outcome for the better.

Now retired from surgery, Dr Fettke, who has worked with journalist Sarah Wilson on her "I Quit Sugar' series, is a part of the diabetes action group led by 2020 Australian of the year, ophthalmologist James Muecke.

"I just got sick and tired of chopping off limbs on my diabetic patients," he said, explaining over 4000 limbs are amputated in Australia every year.

"The vast majority of those are unnecessary.

"Up until six months ago, everyone with diabetes was told it was chronic progressive disease. In the last six months, and spearheaded by our group, we've been able to get the word 'remission' put into the national diabetes strategy.

"The most obviously thing is that diabetes is an inability to process the glucose or the sugar or the carbohydrate you eat. So if you don't eat it, you get rid of type 2 diabetes.

"But we've had a pharmaceutical industry and a food industry that say no, just keep eating what you want and we'll just give you more drugs.

"It's a complete no-brainer, you have the potential to take diabetes and put it into control. If you do that you can control metabolic health issues, you can start than start addressing obesity in a controlled fashion, completely sustainable and then you'll improve your immune function.

"The principle remains. We've been factory-farmed as people now with this social experiment of highly-processed food. It's a big term but none-the-less that's what it is."

Dr Fettke will speak at Duntryleague's Dalton Rood on August 11 from 6pm. Entry is via a donation at the door to cover costs.

For more information, contact Richard Turnbull on 0417 413 995.

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