Thank god for crackpots.

If I’m ever unsure about what to write next, it seems as if one always comes to my rescue. He makes the sort of news that, after a snort and a sad shake of my head, jump-starts another column.

You may have already heard about this guy. (And why’s it always a guy, by the way?)

Newsweek, Men’s Health, and the New York Post have written about him; NBC and Fox News have broadcast segments on him. His first video on Tik Tok got 2.2 million views.

But he got banned from the site for promoting “dangerous weight loss.” The ban has since been rescinded, so 57-year-old Kevin Maginnis is once again updating his followers on his 100-day, McDonald’s-only diet.

“Nothing else has gone in my body,” Maginnis told NBC affiliate WEMV, “not even a breath mint.”

Maginnis spoke to WEMV at the 17-day mark when he had already lost 18 of the 50 pounds he hopes to shed. At the 56-day mark, he posted his total weight loss at 40 pounds.

In an article that appeared online on April 12, Maginnis told Newsweek why he decided to diet. His waist measurement had reached 40 inches, and he remembered reading “that was too big [and] dangerous.”

He also explained his reasoning (or lack thereof) for a McDonald’s only diet.

“Big Mac has always been a nickname for me, and I figured why not just roll with it.” He also figured the only way he would ever lose the amount of weight he wanted to lose eating solely McDonald’s food was to not eat very much of it.

So he buys a breakfast, eats half then and the other half for lunch. He buys “something like a Big Mac meal,” for supper and saves half of it for his next one.

While the diet has so far produced the desired weight loss, the type of food consumed is in no way responsible. Have any overweight, 238-pound guy eat half of whatever garbage he had been eating to get that way and weight loss is the inevitable immediate outcome.

Such a dramatic reduction in cals will also reduce elevated cholesterol and triglyceride levels - and quickly. Bloodwork on Maginnis showed evidence of that in only 14 days.

Now you might think my argument for why all this good news won’t last would revolve around the inherent dangers of a McDonald’s-only diet because they certainly do exist.

Instead, I’ll focus on a clarification made by Maginnis in the Newsweek article: “I’m not saying I’ll do this for the rest of my life. I’m doing it as an experiment for 100 days to identify if my health improves.”

And for 100 days, it will. Of that, I’m certain. But I’m also pretty close to 100% sure of something else.

That one year after the 100-day, McDonald’s only diet ends, Maginnis will be eating normal-sized, less-than-healthy meals, whether they be from McDonald’s or not. As a result, he will weigh more and be in poorer health than at the diet’s start.

Unless, perhaps, he reads the study on the global increase of type two diabetes (T2D) conducted by researchers at the Friedman School of Nutrition and Policy at Tufts University in Boston and published in the journal Nature Medicine on April 17 and applies what he learns about it to his new diet.

One that he will follow for a lifetime and not just 100 days.

The study found a “shift away” from eating traditional whole grains, like oatmeal, “toward more processed, refined staples,” like McDonald’s griddle cakes and hamburger buns, led to diets of “poor carbohydrate quality.” That shift is seen as a “leading driver” in the 386-million-case increase of adult T2D from 1990 to 2018.

Another factor that has made an “outsized contribution” to the increase is eating too much processed meat, like ... well, every single meat offered at Mickey D’s.

Not quite as causative but still a significant influence, is what gets replaced in diets dominated by poor quality carbs and processed meats: the aforementioned whole grains, fruits, non starchy vegetables, nuts, seeds, and yogurt. These are “protective dietary factors” that reduce the rate of T2D - a rate that is now so great it leads the researchers to issue this warning.

“Left unchecked and with prevalence only projected to rise, T2D will decimate population health, economic productivity, and health system capacity worldwide.”

Now if that alert, rather than Kevin Maginnis’ next update, goes viral on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Tik Tok, maybe this year will be different. Maybe there will be far fewer than the 14.1 million new cases of T2D recorded in 2018 because people would heed the warning and consume far less refined carbs and processed meats.