🚨 If I were a lawyer, I would consider suing the US Dietary Guidelines.

According to federal law, the Guidelines must serve the “general public.” But it has no option for the 88% of U.S. adults with one or more chronic diseases.

No advice on how to reverse these diseases. Only advice on prevention of disease (which has demonstrably not worked).

Thus, the Guidelines do not address the general public, as required by law.

Without a dietary option for people with chronic disease (i.e., at least obesity and diabetes), the Guidelines risk violating its authorizing statute.

🧵There’s a very long history of concern about the Guidelines– by scientists, the military, school lunch ladies, and more. This thread tracks the op-eds, science, and legal case for a low-carb option. “US dietary guidelines have made us ill — let's change them already”

By @TyRBeal & me, @thehill (May 2025)
thehill.com/opinion/health…

Are low-carb and ketogenic diets safe? Effective? Sustainable?

A new peer-reviewed study that I am the lead author on just dismantled the most common myths, and the findings could change how we treat chronic disease.

Here’s what you need to know 🧵👇

mdpi.com/2072-6643/17/6… The Chronic Disease Crisis

👉 93% of American adults have risk factors or take medications for obesity, diabetes, or heart disease.

For decades, we've been told to eat low-fat, high-carb diets.

But… have those guidelines worked?

Best vs. worst sources of protein, based on how bio-available and complete they are.
Metric used is PDCAAS, bc author says databases he used were limited. Yet DIAAS metric is considered superior and would show even greater disparity between animal vs. plant proteins. These findings are consistent with a large body of literature on this topic. The US Dietary Guidelines consistently errs in claiming plant proteins having more protein than they do--says the paper.
In the guidelines, "1 oz equivalent" of protein is supposed to have 7g of protein.
USDA says nuts (1 oz), peanut butter (32 g), and beans, peas, and legumes provide this 1-oz equivalent, but they "did not come close to providing the 7 g of protein."

To get that amount of protein, you'd need 1/2 cup nuts, 4.6 tablespoons peanut butter, 0.6 cup beans, according to the paper's data. Remember, all those foods come with a hefty load of starch, which is absent in animal foods.

In sum: the Dietary Guidelines, by putting nuts, seeds, beans, and legumes in its "protein category," falls short of delivering adequate protein to Americans. This means our kids in school, members of the military, women and infant children, and more.

I've applied to lead the next USDA-HHS Dietary Guidelines for Americans. 🧵

How does this process work? Let me explain (what I know): First, the USDA Secy must be nominated. After that, some combo of this person and the USDA transition team decide on appointments. Mine would not require a Presidential nomination or Senate review. I don't aim to be high-level. I just want to bring evidence to a process devoid of it for the past 45 years.

How am I qualified? I have a PhD in nutrition, focusing on evidence-based nutrition policy (which is what we need!)

I spent the last 10y running a small non-profit dedicated to elevating awareness about the problems with the guidelines. These include the need for a recognized, rigorous methodology for the scientific reviews, far better transparency, and more.

I spoke to Congress about the need for a review of the guidelines, which had never been done. Ultimately, Congress mandated 2 reviews by the Nat'l Academies of Sciences, with a $2M allocation. Findings of these reports are stunning. They say that without reform, our guidelines are not "trustworthy."
nutritioncoalition.us/the-process-of…

The Academies made 11 recommendations to USDA to upgrade the guidelines and USDA did not fully implement even one of them.
nutritioncoalition.us/news/usda-fail…

I also worked with top academics, including 5 members of former Dietary Guidelines expert committees, to document the problems with the guidelines in papers, including one published in a journal of the Nat'l Academies (PNAS Nexus). USDA staff wrote a paper labeling our findings "Misinformation."

Another paper I co-authored reported that 95% of the expert committee for the currrent guidelines had at least one tie with food/pharma. This number has been widely cited! Additional unpublished data is here:
nutritioncoalition.us/conflicts-of-i…

An overview of all this work is here:
nutritioncoalition.us/impact The basic story here is that nearly all the large, NIH-funded clinical trials on diet and disease for the past 80 years--many $$billions spent--have been suppressed and ignored. It's not that clinical trials can't be done, as many claim, but rather that the science has been canceled.

For my book, The Big Fat Surprise, I extensively documented the systematic corruption of nutrition science by food/pharma and the cancellation of this, fundamentally important evidence.

That book was a NYTimes and international bestseller, was named a Best Book of the year by the Economist, WSJ, Mother Jones and others. And, it was given strong reviews by 3 top medical journals: the BMJ, the Lancet, and the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition

The Lancet: "Gripping narrative…this is a disquieting book about scientific incompetence, evangelical ambition, and ruthless silencing of dissent that has shaped our lives for decades…researchers, clinicians, and health policy advisors should read this provocative book."

Whatever your views on the election, now is the time to reverse chronic disease in America. We have a chance. @RobertKennedyJr @NicoleShanahan
The single most important thing we can do is to fix the US Dietary Guidelines for Americans--by far the most powerful lever affecting what Americans think is healthy (and what is fed in schools, on military bases, and all federal programs)
The Guidelines have failed us: The Dietary Guidelines have clearly not protected our health. We don't need to assess why.
The National Academies of Sciences has already studied the problem (mandated by Congress, with a $2M allocation). They found that the guidelines "lacked scientific rigor," do not use a "verified methodology," and are not "trustworthy."
nutritioncoalition.us/the-process-of…

Want to know a lie bigger than Biden being “sharp as a tack”?
The one that red meat causes diabetes
A new study is the latest to make this claim. (NYTimes reports)
Like 2+2=5, this claim is unhinged from fundamental facts 🧵 Fact #1: This inconvenient truth

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

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/ The whole conversation on me is here:
2/

https://twitter.com/bigfatsurprise/status/1762847510559670460

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

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…

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)

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 🧵

https://twitter.com/bigfatsurprise/status/1622998851643666432

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)

Makers of Froot Loops, Lucky Charms sue FDA to give their cereals "healthy" label. Says corporate 'free speech' is deprived if they can't tell you sugar is good for you.
“Sugar plays a role in foods beyond palatability... 1/
theintercept.com/2023/03/01/fda… ...[sugar] it controls water activity, creates texture, adds bulk, and also contributes to flavor complexity,” says company brief.
What next?! Eat your "healthy" Hershey's bar?
These companies are shameless.
Thanks to @lhfang for reporting this

Harvard advises mostly plant-based diets for longevity even tho the diet lacks essential nutrients like B12. Could not have even been an option until supplements were invented in mid-1900s. And how come some longest-living people daily ate bacon & eggs? 1/
mindbodygreen.com/articles/harva… This 116 year-old Guiness record holder for oldest person says she ate bacon every day. Had a bacon cake for her 116th birthday 🥓😂 2/
eonline.com/news/704230/ol…
people.com/food/worlds-ol…

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

Quite a bit of #misinformation in this article on protein by the @washpost with Walter Willett, an anti-meat activist who has been saying "no amount of meat" is best since 1990. Why are his biases not disclosed? washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/… 1/ Willett has been richly funded by food industries that benefit from elimination of meat. HIs bias against meat goes back 30y at least and is reflected in his many papers on meat + related topics. His views do not reflect prevailing science on protein. 2/ scribd.com/document/39760…

White House conference on hunger, nutrition & health was supposed to start 15 min ago. The lead-up to this event has been last-minute, secretive, and apparently still is. 🤪...you can watch here 1/
Detailed agenda with names of panelists was released....yesterday.
I don't see any of the known published experts in nutrition and disease here, but there are no bios, so hard to tell. 2/
health.gov/our-work/nutri…

I'm delighted to be an author on this paper, just published, in a journal of the Nat'l Academies of Sciences. A deep-dive analysis of US Dietary Guidelines (#DGA),🧵on findings
academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/adva… 2020 USDA "Dietary Patterns" (main diet advice) are based on systematic review of science from 2012-13. I.e., 8-9 yrs out of date when 2020 report issued.
Law says guidelines should reflect science that's "current at the time the report is prepared"
Guidelines not in compliance

Hard to believe, but the US Dietary Guidelines now recommend even more carbohydrates as % of calories than they did in the last go-around (I just did the math on this).
Currently: 5 years earlier in the last iteration of the guidelines:

Congress gave $2.5M for White House Confrence on Nutrition-a big deal!
Aims to solve "nutrition insecurity"-getting people the essential nutrients (vitamins +minerals) needed to prevent disease
Sounds good, but Is the conf a give-away to Big Food? My op-ed
agri-pulse.com/articles/17470… Big Food prefers you get essential nutrients from their products.
Refined grains are legally required to be enriched in nutrients.
Enriched, refined grains are the food industry’s way to launder processed foods into nutrient-rich ‘health foods’
How we got the "Vitamin Donut"!

For optimal health, I have only 3 Food Rules
1. Minimize sugars + things that turn to sugar upon digestion. Wear a CGM (continuous glucose monitor) if you don't know what these foods are. This rule applies especially to people w/ diabetes, obesity + other metabolic diseases. 1/ CGMs work well bc they reveal to people which foods spike their blood sugar. CGMs allow people to take control of their health.
Two recent studies on this.
This pilot study saw 67% of group reverse T2 diabetes diagnosis in only 3 mo.
2/
diabetes.jmir.org/2022/1/e34465