Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - Low Carb Action Network...Time to write Congress

Also mentioned in Nina Teicholz's essay today, The DGAC has excluded all but one LC study! https://forum.lowcarber.org/showthread.php?t=484057

It is time to write your senators and representative. The Low Carb Action Network has an easy way to do this on its website, plus add your own personalization, here:

https://lowcarbaction.org/take-action

Quote:

In an astonishing development, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) was recently found to have excluded nearly every study on low-carb diets from the scientific reviews that will inform the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA). The only exception was a single low-carb study, by a member of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), the expert group overseeing these reviews. It appears, in fact, that the exclusion criteria created by USDA officials together with this committee may have been designed with the specific intent of excluding these studies.

This is shocking and unacceptable.

Excluding evidence is unscientific and contrary to the Congressional mandate for the Dietary Guidelines, which states that the guidelines must use the “scientific and medical knowledge which is current at the time the report is prepared.”

For the last set of guidelines, in 2015, the expert committee conducted a formal review of low-carb diets but did not publish its findings, effectively burying the science. Is it possible the 2020 committee will also ignore and bury the science?

We cannot let this happen.

Now is the time to contact your Members of Congress to remind them that the Dietary Guidelines process is Congressionally mandated to review the ‘best and most current science.’ The current exclusion of science and lack of transparency in the 2020 process are not only unacceptable but do a disservice to sound policy and all Americans. A delay of the expert report is also warranted so that the Committee can fix these serious issues.

Their base letter reads as follows (Edited shorter with your personalization, but all the info is here to use):

Quote:

I am writing to raise concerns about the process for the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA), which touch every aspect of health and nutrition in America. After the final public meeting of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee in March, I have serious concerns that this committee is excluding studies on a number of nutritional issues, most notably, numerous clinical trials on low-carbohydrate diets.

The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture was recently found to have excluded nearly every study on low-carb diets from the scientific reviews that will inform the 2020 DGA. The only exception was a single low-carb study, by a member of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC), the expert group overseeing these reviews. It appears, in fact, that the exclusion criteria created by USDA officials together with this committee may have been designed with the specific intent of excluding these studies.

This is shocking and unacceptable.

The scientific reviews demonstrate extreme bias against low carbohydrate diets. The facts supporting this statement are:

1. Of the 52 low-carb studies that the Low-Carb Action Network formally submitted to the Committee via public comment, 11 could not be found on either the inclusion or exclusion lists. These studies were simply ignored.

2. The USDA's exclusion criteria appear to have be written with the specific intent of excluding the entire scientific literature on low-carb diets.

3. "Weight loss" was part of the exclusion criteria for all diets. How can this exclusion be possible when obesity is such an enormous problem in America, and one of the Guidelines' stated aims is to help people achieve a healthy weight?

4. The DGAC's Subcommittee on Dietary Patterns, which oversaw the reviews of low-carb studies, excluded any that were of less than 12 weeks duration. This 12-week standard was uniquely strict and inconsistent with the more lax standards applied by other Subcommittees.

5. The Subcommittee on Dietary Patterns used inconsistent standards even within its own reviews.

As you know, the Guidelines are highly influential, from the advice doctors and nurses share with patients, to the food served in hospitals, schools and military mess halls, to the FDA-approved Nutrition Facts Label, and even to the food purchase options allowed under subsidized nutrition programs like SNAP.

The egregious lack of rigor and apparent outright bias leave this Committee and its conclusions open to scientific ridicule.

Given Congressional oversight of the DGA process, I urge you to contact Secretary of Agriculture Perdue and ask him to review the process that the DGA Advisory Committee is following, including its exclusion of a vast quantity of scientific evidence on low-carb diets as well as the lack of any public transparency regarding these scientific recommendations. There is an obvious need for an additional meeting of the DGAC at which the public could ask questions regarding these issues. A delay of the expert report is also warranted so that the Committee can fix the serious issues cited above.

COVID-19 has highlighted now more than ever the importance of diet-related diseases. We need a nutrition policy that is evidence-based in order to fight these conditions which afflict so many Americans.