Congratulations to Nina Teicholz in having her opinion article published in today’s (09/12/2018) issue of the Wall Street Journal titled “Carbs, Good for You? Fat Chance!”.
Introductory paragraphs are as follows;
The U.S. government’s nutrition advice since 1980 has mainly been to increase consumption of carbohydrates and avoid fats. Despite following this advice for nearly four decades, Americans are sicker and fatter than ever. Such a record of failure should have discredited the nutrition establishment. Yet defenders of the nutrition status quo continue to mislead the public and put Americans’ health at risk.
_A widely reported study last month purported to show that carbohydrates are essential to longevity and that low-carb diets are “linked to early death,” as a USA Today headline put it. The study, published in the Lancet Public Health journal, is the nutrition elite’s response to the challenge coming from a fast-growing body of evidence demonstrating the health benefits of low-carb eating. _
The authors relied on data from the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities study, or ARIC, which since 1987 has observed 15,000 middle-aged people in four U.S. communities. Funded by the National Institutes of Health, ARIC may seem robust study, but it is based on a thin data set. Researchers’ food questionnaires typically feature between 100 and 200 dietary items, but participants in this study were queried on only 66. Popular foods such as pizza and energy bars were left out, with undercounting of calories the inevitable result. ARIC calculated that participants ate only 1,500 calories a day—starvation rations for most.
Nina’s summary paragraph states;
Lancet Public Health (a separate journal from its more prestigious parent, the Lancet) charges contributors an “article processing fee” of $5,000. The journal publishes papers that need to be distributed “quickly” to “advance public health policies.” What exactly was the rush here? Given the lack of rigor, it seems the paper’s purpose was not to help people eat better and live longer but rather to quash public interest in low-carb, high-fat diets. Needlessly scaring people away from diets with established health benefits could endanger the public.
KCKO
rkd999
