Dietary Guidelines

• Deception from The BMJ

  On 24th September 2015, BMJ issued a press release titled BMJ investigation questions expert advice underpinning new US dietary guidelines. The press release stated:

  The expert report underpinning the latest dietary guidelines for Americans fails to reflect much relevant scientific literature in its reviews of crucial topics and therefore risks giving a misleading picture, an investigation by The BMJ has found.

  The BMJ Investigation was an article written by Nina Teicholz in response to the above report. It was not a BMJ investigation. Why is The BMJ press release stating that they, The BMJ, performed an investigation when it is clear that this is not the case.

  This article was fully funded with a grant from the Laura and John Arnold Foundation (www.arnoldfoundation.org).

  The Laura and John Arnold Foundation provided the seed funding for NuSI, the organisation founded by Gary Taubes and Peter Attia to promote low-carbohydrate nutritional science.

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  27 June 2017

• What is the natural diet for humans?

  What is the natural diet for humans?  This is a common question but — we evolve based on behaviour and our behaviour may have a number of consequences, some beneficial and others not so much.

  Giraffes have long necks, not to enable them to reach leaves high in a tree, but because males fight using the necks.  Males with the longest, strongest neck wins. It does make life more awkward when eating grass or drinking from a water-hole in the evening.

  Evolution is based on changes that enable us to pass on genes for future generations.  If a genetic change affects cholesterol metabolism and causes an increase in heart disease this may not be relevant in evolutionary terms because heart disease usually affects people later in life.

  It still may have an impact on human society because of the important influence of grandparents involved in child-minding and their importance as a repository of knowledge.

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  16 November 2016

• DASH Diet and Blood Pressure

  The concept that diet and blood pressure are linked has been discussed since at least the 1920s. In 1926, Donaldson noted that “vegetarians, we believe, run a consistently lower blood pressure than those who use flesh foods."

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  22 October 2016

• Polyunsaturated Fats Cause Cancer – LA Veterans Trial

  The Wadsworth VA Hospital in Los Angeles operated a home where male army veterans resided. The meals were provided by one of two dining halls.

  Men in dining Hall A continued their usual diet. The “saturated animal fat and hydrogenated shortening replaced with vegetable oils in the experimental diet” for the diets provided in dining Hall B. Low fat diets were not considered because such a diet required “gastronomic sacrifice”. The total fat content of the 2 diets were the same, providing 40% of the total energy. (Diets of 40% fat cannot be considered a healthy diet.)

  This study is sometimes used to "proof" that a polyunsaturated fats promote cancer.  A reading of papers from the trial shows that this is not the case.

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  5 April 2015

• Why are there so many points of view regarding nutrition?

  There can be a tendency for researchers and commentators to become attached to one particular area and not be able to see the relationship and interconnectedness with the different aspects of the same disease.

  Also, much research is focused on individual components of nutrition, such as individual minerals, vitamins, or components such as fats or saturated fats.

  Once again, researchers can become attached to one particular element of nutrition. We search for the magic supplement or the one miraculous cure.

  Nutrition is the result of endless number of components in food. Health is the result of the relationship between all that we eat (and absorb during digestion), our relationships with others, the community that we live in and the world that we inhabit.

  Looking at individual components of food in isolation can never give a complete picture.

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  4 May 2014

• MRFIT Study – What did it tell us?

  The Australian Broadcaster ABC televised the program Heart of the Matter Part 1 - Dietary Villains on Thursday, 24 October 2013. This program listed the MRFIT study as more evidence that cholesterol is not implicated in heart disease.

  The Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial (MRFIT) was a coronary heart disease prevention trial that was conducted at 22 US clinical centres (18 cities) from 1973 to 1982. The multiple risks evaluated were elevated serum cholesterol, elevated blood pressure and cigarette smoking.

  A number of popular commentators use this trial as proof that cholesterol is not implicated in heart disease.

  The tobacco industry also used the results of the MRFIT study to argue that smoking is not harmful.

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  30 April 2014

• Diet Does Not Affect Breast Cancer?

  The objective of The Women’s Healthy Eating and Living (WHEL) Randomized Trial was to:

  To assess whether a major increase in vegetable, fruit, and fiber intake and a decrease in dietary fat intake reduces the risk of recurrent and new primary breast cancer and all-cause mortality among women with previously treated early stage breast cancer.

  The conclusion of this “controlled trial of dietary change in 3088 women previously treated for early stage breast cancer” was:

  Among survivors of early stage breast cancer, adoption of a diet that was very high in vegetables, fruit, and fiber and low in fat did not reduce additional breast cancer events or mortality during a 7.3-year follow-up period.

  This made headlines all over the world. This is the proof people were waiting for – that changes to your diet has no impact on breast cancer. Medical practitioners, dieticians and the public now have the evidence that there is no need to change your diet.

  It appears that the authors are deliberately being deceptive.

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  23 January 2014

• An Apple a Day

  A study published in the British Medical Journal stated:

  If everyone over the age of 50 ate an apple a day, 8,500 deaths from heart attacks and strokes could be avoided every year in the UK.

  Apples give a similar decrease in the risk of heart disease as statins but do not carry any of the potential side effects.

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  29 December 2013

• Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes

  For a person with Type II diabetes, the problem is that sugar (glucose) is not able to pass from the bloodstream into the cells. Since the glucose cannot get into the cells, it ends up in the blood stream and removed from the body in urine.

  It seems obvious that if you have too much sugar in your blood then you need to limit the amount of sugar and starch in your diet. Starches are complex carbohydrates that consists of many glucose molecules.

  The diet of people that live in countries that have low incidence of diabetes do not have a diet remotely like the standard diabetic diet. They eat a diet that is high in complex carbohydrates.

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  30 October 2013