Active Low-Carber Forums - Nina Teicholz BMJ Article on the Dietary Guidlines

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- - Nina Teicholz BMJ Article on the Dietary Guidlines (http://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=469995)

Nina Teicholz BMJ Article on the Dietary Guidlines

Excerpt:

Quote:

Low carbohydrate diets

Another important topic that was insufficiently reviewed is the efficacy of low carbohydrate diets. Again, the 2015 committee did not request a NEL systematic review of the literature from the past five years. The report says that this was because, after conducting “exploratory searches” of the literature since 2000, the committee could find “only limited evidence [on] low-carbohydrate diets and health, particularly evidence derived from US based populations.”27

http://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h4962

There is no money to be made in this way of eating because people getting their health back. So why bother reading the research.

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It has a big impact on the diet of American citizens, and those of most Western nations, so why does the expert advice underpinning US government dietary guidelines not take account of all the relevant scientific evidence?

The dietary guidelines have ignored the relevant scientific evidence since their inception. Why would they start now?

Four words: Big agribusiness and Big pharma.

The amount of bad advice that is issued by the federal government in response to pressure from large industry is nothing short of breathtaking.

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Originally Posted by MickiSue

Four words: Big agribusiness and Big pharma.

The amount of bad advice that is issued by the federal government in response to pressure from large industry is nothing short of breathtaking.

From the article:

Quote:

The BMJ has also found that the committee’s report used weak scientific standards, reversing recent efforts by the government to strengthen the scientific review process. This backsliding seems to have made the report vulnerable to internal bias as well as outside agendas.

Parts of the government are trying to get things back to science and data. But the current practice of outright buying legislators is what is stopping them.

And I'm sure there are many scientists who would like to get grants that are based on actual study, not buckets of money from the Usual Suspects.

That's true; although, there are many "scientists" and "researchers" who need to be employed by grant money any way they can get it.

I'm really looking forward to the Congressional hearing in October. It will be fascinating, I'm sure.

The encouraging piece of information is the observation about having more public comments than any time before. Awareness is the beginning of change, and the public has the capability of driving this. It will take some time. I'd vote for a dietary guidelines review and update every two years at this point to acknowledge the emerging differing nutritional evidence, which isn't happening today.

Newsweek has picked up the BMJ article:

http://www.newsweek.com/proposed-us...-science-375598

Newsweek wrote a few others critical of the guidelines when they were first published.

The Dept Of HHS has issued a response to the BMJ article, quoted at end of this Mother Jones article.

http://www.motherjones.com/blue-mar...tary-guidelines

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Update: The US Department of Health and Human Services has issued a statement about the BMJ article: "The British Medical Journal’s decision to publish this article is unfortunate given the prevalence of factual errors. HHS and USDA required the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee to conduct a rigorous, systematic and transparent review of the current body of nutrition science. Following an 19-month open process, documented for the public on DietaryGuidelines.gov, the external expert committee submitted its report to the Secretaries of HHS and USDA. HHS and USDA are considering the Scientific Report of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, along with comments from the public and input from federal agencies, as we develop the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans to be released later this year."

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The defense is ready: https://theconversation.com/expert-...uidelines-48007

Nina Teicholz, like Gary Taubes, an investigative journalist who entered this contentious arena without a particular bias or perhaps a bias towards the guidelines, discovered that the nutrition advice we had all been given for so long was all wrong. Also like Gay Taubes she did meticulous research, knowing, I"m sure, that nothing less than that would not hold its own. I trust her evaluation of the current guidelines much more than any government defense of them.

Of those 66 references she used for this article, a number of them are straight from the DGAC's report as to what methodology they used. Wonder what factual errors they accuse her of?

I also wonder if there is anything the LC public can do about this upcoming hearing? Frankly I have forgotten how hearings work, who goes, two secretaries speaking..which ones, only the committee or all interested congress, write to our congressman at this point? Need a civics class again :)

But happy to see these guidelines had 11,000 comments...probably most from lobbyists, but many outraged citizens too (moi).

From MedPage Today -

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Primary...Nutrition/53701

Dr Katz, bless his heart -

Quote:

The report does take into account sustainability, something that the committee noted was not traditionally in their purview. "Ms. Teicholz seems inclined to ignore that altogether; perhaps she does not care whether there is anything for the next generation to eat or drink, but I suspect most of us do," Katz noted.

I'm told Ms. Teicholz also eats kittens for breakfast ;)

Quote:

In the same BMJ article, DGAC Chair Barbara Millen, DrPH, RD, defended the committee's approach.

"The evidence base has never been stronger to guide solutions. You don't simply answer these questions on the basis of the NEL," she said. "Where we didn't feel we needed to, we didn't do them. On topics where there were existing comprehensive guidelines, we didn't do them."

To paraphrase, "We already know the answers why do we need to look at data?"

Tom Naughton's favorite anti-fat crusader, The Guy from CSPI calls the BMJ article "Error-laden"

https://www.cspinet.org/new/201509231.html

New Ruth, there are some quite witty comments about Katz's article on the NMS Facebook page. You could add your kitten comment to them :lol:

http://m.abc17news.com/health/how-s...cience/35466316

And Dear Dr. Katz, Dr Eenfeldt calls you on the assertion that "you don't have a diet to sell" No, just four diet books.

http://www.dietdoctor.com/news

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Diet Guru Dr. Katz Goes Ballistic (Again)

To say that the influential diet guru Dr. David Katz disprove of the recent BMJ article about saturated fat is an understatement:

Dr. Katz on LinkedIn: An Open Letter to the BMJ Regarding US Dietary Guidance

It’s not the first time Dr. Katz is over-the-top disappointed in great scientific journals or NYT publishing something involving Gary Taubes or Nina Teicholz, if fact it tends to happen every single time. Dr. Katz might qualify as the (h?)angriest diet guru in America.

Dr Katz’s rebuttal usually involves denigrating his opponent for having books to sell. Here’s a few examples from his latest critique:

With all due respect to Ms. Teicholz, she is not a nutrition expert, and not a scientist. She is a journalist herself, and one with a book to sell. She refers to bias, but fails to highlight her own. […] The notion that the opinion of one journalist with a book to sell…

And finally…

I don’t have a diet to sell.

So that’s no less than three times in one brief article that Katz attempts to discredit Teicholz by bringing up her excellent book The Big Fat Surprise (one of the best books of last year according to publications like The Economist and The Wall Street Journal). This even though Teicholz never mentions the book in her article.

However Dr. Katz still insists we should not listen to Teicholz as she has written a book on the history of the science behind our dietary recommendations. He, on the other hand says “I don’t have a diet to sell”, and technically that is correct. Dr. Katz does not have one diet to sell, he has many diets to sell.

(Photos of four diet book covers )

Comment
Yep, there they are, complete with their “lose X pounds in Y weeks” taglines, while showing chocolate cake on the cover, wildly unsubstantiated health promises and cover blurbs by Dr. Oz.
Even Dr. Katz may have to agree that Dr. Oz is an entertainer, not a scientist, regularly promoting any dubious idea or product when it can bolster his ratings. No self-respecting scientist would put a Dr. Oz blurb on the cover of his diet book, let alone twice, unless he’s desperate to sell more books.

So – this attack may be the biggest dose of hypocrisy I’ve had all week. Sorry, Dr. Katz, but when it comes to integrity and focusing on the real scientific questions it’s game, set and match to Teicholz.

Sure that he is especially irked that her book is still near the top of many health related best-seller lists, while his latest Disease-Proof book barely made a blip on the sales charts. :lol:

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Originally Posted by JEY100

New Ruth, there are some quite witty comments about Katz's article on the NMS Facebook page. You could add your kitten comment to them :lol:

Awww, thanks, but I don't do the FB thing.

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Originally Posted by JEY100

Sure that he is especially irked that her book is still near the top of many health related best-seller lists, while his latest Disease-Proof book barely made a blip on the sales charts. :lol:

Quoted for the enjoyment factor.

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Originally Posted by NewRuth

Dr Katz, bless his heart -

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What a whiny putz. Grains destroy the soil like nobody's business.

DGAC completely disassociated from top-level science:

http://www.dietdoctor.com/is-the-us...tific-community