Medical influencer calls Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu ‘health illiterate’, slams over benefits of walking barefoot

Like all Indians, Zoho co-founder and CEO Sridhar Vembu offered a seemingly harmless advice when he promoted walking barefoot to his social media users. However, the advice did not sit well with Liver specialist and clinician-scientist Dr Cyriac Abby Philips, the popular health influencer "The Liver Doctor".

The Kerala-based doctor called out "health illiterate boomer uncle" Vembu for “peddling pseudoscience” to his large list of followers . However, the billionaire did not budge and instead asked his followers to be wary of "arrogant doctors", referring to the Liver Doctor.

Vembu, in a thread on X (formerly Twitter), revealed that he has been walking barefoot in the farms of his remote village Govindapperi in Tamil Nadu's Tenkasi for about a year and shared the health benefits of “grounding”.

“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!” Vembu wrote.

However, this did not sit well with Dr Philips. Known for calling out celebrities, including actors Samantha Ruth Prabhu, for promoting health fads not supported by science and medicine, the influencer said there is no clinically relevant benefits of walking barefoot.

"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," Dr Philips said.

"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," he added.

The billionaire retorted by calling the liver doctor “arrogant” and said great doctors don't do stupid name calling.

“Stay away from arrogant doctors - that is the best health tip I can give anyone. 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,” Vembu said.

“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,” he added.

Dr Philips also did a bit of retorting, and said, “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 added.

The doctor 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.

Dr Philips also requested the Zoho CEO to “stop peddling nonsense”, and said, “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, Vembu said 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.

However, Dr Philips also wrote a concluding post of his own, opposing the CEO's views “strongly”, because he claimed, he 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 health influencer 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," he added.