Social media personality says 'chemo is killing us'. Internet responds.

Meet FreeLee the Banana girl.

She’s 34, she’s from Adelaide, and she has over 77,000 Facebook likes and almost 221,000 YouTube followers.

The social media personality is also making headlines this week — because the self-proclaimed diet guru has made some startling online claims that have made a lot of people very, very angry.

‘Menstruation is toxicity leaving the body’

In one controversial video on her popular YouTube channel, FreeLee — who’s dedicated to promoting a high-fruit, vegan lifestyle — appears to boast about losing her period.

“As soon as I came onto the raw lifestyle, within a month I lost my period. It went away for nine months and then I fell off the wagon and I started eating a high-fat, vegan diet and my period came back,” she says in the video, as the Daily Mail reports.

“Now some people say it’s bad and unhealthy and you need your period but is it? All I can go on is my instincts and my feeling at the time that it felt good. It felt right, and at the time I think it need to happen for my body to balance out,” she says.

“There are a lot of different opinions on this and I don’t claim to have all the answers. What I do believe to be healthy is a light flow…. and not painful,” she adds.

“I still believe that largely menstruation is toxicity leaving the body. So a lot of women are having these heavy painful periods because they have a toxic body or a toxic diet, and the body’s trying to eliminate that toxicity and get it out.”

Experts respond

But her message has been criticised by experts and commenters alike — with the CEO of the national peak body for eating disorders warning that viewers should ‘avoid listening to untrained advice.”

CEO of The Butterfly Foundation Christine Morgan tells Mamamia today: “Excluding food groups or putting your body through any sort of nutritional deprivation can cause harm.”

“A woman’s body is designed to work in a certain way and has a natural purpose that powers you through your day-to-day life. Anyone who promotes or endorses behaviour that is going to adversely affect the natural workings of your body is irresponsible, and should be ignored,” Ms Morgan says.

“Restricted, sporadic or the complete cessation of your menstrual cycles is a clear indicator that your body isn’t functioning correctly. Depriving your body of the nutrition that it requires can affect your menstrual cycle,” she says.

“Women suffering with an eating disorder often have complete cessation of their period, and eating disorders clinicians view this as a very serious symptom of the severity of these illnesses.”

“Chemo is killing us”

In another controversial video, FreeLee posts about a young cancer patient, 13-year-old Talia Joy, who died after a long battle with the disease, the Daily Mail reports.

In the video — the title of which includes the claim “Chemo is killing us” — FreeLee says she’s “mad that (Talia) is no longer with us, and the reason being chemotherapy.”

“I really feel very, very sorry for her mother in this situation because her mum didn’t know any better… the doctors and the medical industry are not going to tell you to change your diet because when you have cancer, your sickness is their profit,” she says in the video.

“Don’t dismiss the power of a raw vegan diet because that is what heals your body. Chemotherapy, poisoning your cells does not heal your body,” she says.

“How can you get well by taking poison? By injecting poison into your veins?”

“Totally irresponsible”

Cancer experts have refuted FreeLee’s claims about chemotherapy, with Cancer Council Australia’s CEO criticising her message as ‘totally irresponsible.’

The organisation’s CEO, Professor Ian Olver, tells Mamamia: “Unfortunately, cancer treatment is not always successful, but the evidence is carefully collected to determine the best treatment for each patient.”

“There is no evidence to suggest that a raw vegan diet will cure cancer and patients who abandon recommended treatment options such as chemotherapy may be abandoning the only chance they have of controlling or curing their disease,” he says.

He adds: “Using current treatment options, cancer survival rates in Australia are steadily increasing. Two-thirds of patients diagnosed today will still be alive in five-years time.”

Commenters on the video’s YouTube page have also hit back at FreeLee’s shocking claims, with Mike H writing: “Call me skeptical, but just out of curiosity, what are Banana Girl’s medical qualifications? Is she a nurse, an oncologist or another medical professional?”