Dietary Guidelines

Michael Mosley and Coconut Oil

Dr Michael Mosely (Trust Me, I’m a Doctor) instigated a trial to determine the impact of coconut oil on cardio-vascular health.

In a University of Cambridge study, 94 participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups. They were asked to consume an additional 50g of fat – either coconut oil, butter or olive oil, daily for a period of four weeks.

The main measure was the change in total cholesterol.

Based on this study, Michael Mosley now thinks that coconut oil may be good for you. The study showed nothing to suggest that this could be true.
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1 April 2018
Eggs and the Questionable Benefits of Choline

According to the Australian Eggs website,

Choline is used by the body for metabolic processes such as liver function, normal brain development, nerve function and muscle movement. It’s particularly important during pregnancy to support foetal brain development."

Egg consumption has consistently been shown to be associated with an increase in prostate cancer, so what is the story?
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27 November 2017
What are the Nutritional Benefits of Eggs?

The nutritional benefits of eggs is highlight in the Australian Eggs’ OK Everyday campaign. Just how accurate is the assertion that “eggs aren’t just delicious, they’re incredibly nutritious. There’s a good reason eggs are often referred to as nature’s multivitamin – they’re one of the healthiest foods you can eat”.

Let’s examine some of the claims that are being made.
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25 November 2017
CSIRO Healthy Diet Score and Egg Consumption in Australia

In May 2015, the CSIRO (Australia) Healthy Diet Score survey was launched. This survey describes Australian’s self-reported diets and their compliance with the Australian Dietary Guidelines. As at June 2016, more than 85,000 people have responded.

This survey was used to justify the “Eggs are OK every day” campaign. This is despite the fact that the only measurable health outcome was weight status and despite the fact that there is only a fair correlation between two different self-reported dietary surveys that were performed a week apart.
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27 October 2017
Eating Red Meat is Not Natural

Galactose-alpha-1,3-galactose is popularly known as alpha-gal. It is a carbohydrate found in the meat of mammals – exceptions being primates (which includes humans) and other African and Asian apes.

Since the early 2000s, severe allergic reaction has been observed several hours after the consumption of red meat. Several deaths have occurred. This is associated with IgE antibodies to alpha-gal as a result of the patients been bitten by ticks. This has occurred in eastern Australia, south-east USA and Sweden.
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11 September 2017
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
Quotes Relating to Health

Authors including Plato, Plutarch, Charles Darwin, George Bernard Shaw and Albert Einstein had a say about health. Given that the state of our health has such an impact on our lives it is really not a surprise.
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29 June 2016
How Cooking Changed Us

Richard Wrangham is a Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard University. He is also the curator of Primate Behavioral Biology at the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts and a director of the Kibale Chimpanzee Project in Uganda.

Wrangham began his career at Gombe Stream National Park in Tanzania as a member of Jane Goodall's chimpanzee research team.

The standard view of evolution is that by eating meat, humans were able to evolve the larger brains that distinguish us from other primates. Wranghams’s view is that cooking food is a fundamental activity that transformed humans and our society. He is not the first to propose this view but has developed the concept.

Cooking increased the value of our food. It changed our bodies, our brains, our use of time and our social relationships.
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20 March 2016