My latest: "A short history of saturated fat: the making and unmaking of a scientific consensus"
Do saturated fats cause heart disease? The science was always weak. Fear of these fats was started by American Heart Assoc. in 1961 based on a flawed study🧵 journals.lww.com/co-endocrinolo…
2. At the time, Heart Assoc had a major undisclosed conflict of interest: it had basically been launched by funding ($20M in today's dollars) from Procter & Gamble, maker of Crisco Oil
Heart Assoc then promoted veg. oils by selling them as "heart healthy," safer than sat fats
3. Despite Heart Assoc advice, he original "core" clinical trials on saturated fats, from the 60s and 70s, could not find an effect of these fats on cardiovascular mortality, total mortality, and for the most part heart attacks or other 'events.'
4. Results from these trials, other studies on sat fats were ignored, suppressed. Eg, the famous Framingham study couldn't find any link between sat fats and heart disease. This govt-funded result was never published.
Another major study w/ contrary results not published for 17y
5. Scientists began to re-examine sat fats in late 2000s, w/ work by @garytaubes, and then my book, the first to bring together the arguments, history, on saturated fats + vegetable oils, exposing how we were misled in being told to trade a natural fat for an industrial product
6. My op-ed in the WSJ was a big factor in prompting a new review on sat fats, by the expert committee in charge of 2015 US Dietary Guidelines. Their intention was to defend the 10% cap on saturated fat, even tho committee head says "there's no magic/data...for the 10%"
7. 2020 Dietary Guidelines expert committee found that 88% of studies in their own review did not support idea of these fats --> heart disease. Yet committee ignored its own data and concluded the evidence against sat fat was "strong." Suppl. material in mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/1…
8."The current challenge is for this new consensus on saturated fats to be recognized by policy makers, who, in the United States, have shown marked resistance to the introduction of the new evidence."--from conclusion of my paper. Also, key points here:
9. Also, not in my paper but important for those who argue that we should cut sat fats anyway, as a prudent measure of prevention. Consider:
Avoiding sat fats can do harm, because you will cut out foods that contain the key nutrients needed for maintaining health...
10....And having healthy children. Nutritionists talk about the "food matrix" in which nutrients are eaten. Sat fats eaten in the context of natural, whole foods, come in tandem with Vitamins, minerals, complete proteins that are essential for life.
11. It's sobering to realize that US policy to cut saturated fats was created for middle-aged men fearful of heart disease. Never considered the potential harms to women, children.
US policy on sat fats never weighed costs vs. benefits and has never reflected the science
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One year ago, dozens of headlines splashed news about a "keto-like" diet causing heart disease
This came from a press release by the Amer. College of Cardiology, on data that had been presented at their conference but not published--not even a pre-print; study not registered 1/
@ACCinTouch
I wrote about this at the time:
All links, statement from ACC, attempts to interview the researchers here.
(need to scroll half-way down the article) 2/shorturl.at/myzGT
A year later, there's still nothing published, not even a pre-print🤔
Press releasing unpublished data is poor practice. Rules out the possibility of critique by other researchers--bc data not available.
Could be seen as a PR stunt 3/
Gemini AI doesn't just have a "woke" problem. It's also engaged in making harmful, (libelous/defamatory) statements about people like myself, who challenge a status quo narrative. Should this not be of concern to @GoogleAI?
In my case, Gemini falsely asserts that I have ties to the meat and dairy industries. It tries to substantiate these claims with innuendos and fallacious arguments
When corrected, Gemini says, 'I'm learning,' yet if you ask again, it just repeats the same false information 1/
I'm having trouble believing that the @nytime cares about the health of its readers.
Here's a featured recipe from this week. A stack of pancakes with syrup that will send your blood sugar sky high and is one of the worst possible ways to start the day.
And ICYMI, here's what the Times recommended in the middle of the pandemic, when we knew that obesity, diabetes etc vastly increased the risk of worsened outcomes and death from Covid
Also during the pandemic, here was its Ode to Binge Eating.
"Let’s stress-eat some chips together
The American Heart Assn (AHA). just came out with a diet-rating list that tanks low-carb/keto due to saturated fat. Why is the AHA the last to get the news that these fats don't cause heart disease? 1/ nbcnews.com/health/heart-h…
This authoritative "State of the Art Review" in a top journal written by authors including 5 former members of the US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committees concluded there should be no more caps on saturated fats. Evidence does not support it. doi.org/10.1016/j.jacc…
Here's a summary of 22 review papers, the vast majority of which conclude saturated fats are not a factor in poor heart disease outcomes.
AHA paper is an outlier--bc it ignores the more definitive "hard outcome" data on cardiovascular and total mortality. scribd.com/document/64120…
New paper: shows how a low-carb diet could be a viable, affordable option for the US Dietary Guidelines.
USDA needs a low-carb option, because its current 3 "dietary patterns" are 52-56% of calories as carbs.
What would a low-carb option look like? 🧵 frontiersin.org/articles/10.33…
--Far fewer grains. Grains just turn to sugar in the body
--No refined grains (duh)
--Far less dairy (this surprised me)
--Much more protein (the current amount in the guidelines is a bare minimum but not enough for kids, elderly and other groups)
More veggies!
--A lot more green, red and orange vegetables
--More beans, peas and lentils (? bc carb-rich)
--Fewer starchy vegetables. Starch --> sugar in the body
Is the next generation of MDs getting smarter about food for health?
An informal poll of med students at Harvard, Yale, Tufts, others (# students=41) is encouraging.
Poll organizer-a student who read ⬇️ thread
(chart is not a joke). Poll results-this 🧵
2. Above chart is data from "Food Compass," a food profiling system developed by Dean of Tufts School of Nutrition
Poll Q: What's healthier--Reeses Puffs or an egg?
-Students-->100% say eggs
-Food Compass-->Reeses Puffs scores 71 vs. 54 for cooked egg (100 is perfect score)
3. Poll Q: What's healthier?
Chocolate almonds or turkey breast?
Students--> 100% say turkey breast
Food Compass-->Chocolate almonds scores 78 vs. 55 for turkey breast
Go students!