Apparently the NIH does not consider the Lo Carb/Keto of not studying. Read the story. PLEASE email these folks.
NIH study. They need our input
KHAN
(Randy)
#2
Here is my submission.
After nearly 40 years of rising obesity, type 2 diabetes, cancer and other metabolic diseases that perfectly coincide with the 1977 dietary guidelines and the “Food Pyramid”, it’s time to remove your heads from the sand and admit that diets low in fat and high in grains and other processed carbohydrates along with highly oxidized omega 6 seed oils (corn, canola soy) have been a complete disaster.
Financial benefits to the large food makers have obviously influenced the"science" of nutrition and it needs to stop now. A simple look at the recent Virta study should be enough to put serious funding in to LCHF diets as a means of reversing metabolic issues. The current guidelines have done far too much damage. It’s time to do the right thing.
Thank you
PaulL
(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing)
#3
Dear Sir or Madam:
I trust that your research plans include studying the long-term effects of low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets (what Stephen Phinney calls a “well-formulated ketogenic diet”). I find the mechanistic explanation of how such a way of eating produces its effects to be highly compelling and have benefited from such a diet myself. Yet there is a great need for longer-term randomized, controlled studies.
I have discovered that much of the current “knowledge” in the field of nutrition is actually hypothesis backed up with almost no research, and that prevailing ideas tend to persist, even in the face of studies (such as Ancel Keys’ own Minnesota Coronary Study) that tend to disprove them. A series of objective, randomized, controlled trials should either verify or falsify these hypotheses and would, regardless of results, provide a real advance in our understanding of human nutrition.
For example, if dietary saturated fat really is so deadly, despite two million years of human evolution, let’s see some real proof. Or if the diet-heart hypothesis can’t be proved, let’s abandon it. Likewise for the issue of cholesterol and its relationship to cardiovascular disease. There are a significant number of epidemiological studies showing that high LDL levels may actually have a protective effect. So let’s see whether that’s really true or not, and either prove or disprove the hypothesis. Lastly, a number of researchers are now calling Alzheimer’s Disease type III diabetes mellitus, because it appears to be caused by insulin resistance. Let’s prove whether they are right or wrong to do so. And if a simple change of diet could help prevent or ameliorate this scourge, shouldn’t we be looking into it?
The hormonal model of weight maintenance seems to be a lot more nuanced than the simple energy-balance hypothesis (and as I wrote above, it has some compelling mechanisms underlying it), so let’s do some experiments to see which one is actually correct. The assertion has also been made that the diabetes and obesity epidemics could be cured by simply abandoning the current U.S. dietary guidelines and returning the nation to its pre-1979 way of eating (or better yet, its pre-1860 way of eating). Doesn’t NIH have a moral responsibility to prove or disprove this assertion?
If NIH is not willing to do such experiments, then I fully expect it to stop making any dietary recommendations whatsoever, since the current ones are, so far as I can tell, backed up by nothing but flawed epidemiological data.
Yours very truly,
ctviggen
(Bob M)
#4
Very nice letters.
Personally, I’m not getting my hopes up. The Women’s Health Initiative, Dietary Intervention Trial randomized two groups into low fat and regular, and the low fat group ate more fruits and veggies, less red meat (by 20%, a statistically significant amount), less fat, less saturated fat, etc., yet at the end of 8 years and 400+ million dollars, there was no difference in anything, not cancer, not heart disease, nothing. And the study was powered to get those results.
What happened to this study? It’s been ignored.
Also, I don’t think the NIH has input into the dietary guidelines, though a study run by them could be used by the people who make the guidelines. (Again, that’s a long shot, considering these people believe in plant-based diets.)
PaulL
(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing)
#5
You are right; the dietary guidelines are in the purview of the Department of Agriculture, not the National Institutes of Health. But I put that in there for a reason: the NIH is a supporter of the dietary guidelines and refuses to fund research into low-carbohydrate eating. It is immoral and unscientific for them to do so without doing the research that proves that the other way of eating is healthful.
charlie3
(charlie3)
#6
To whom it may concern,
I read most of the (gigantic) advisory committee report by listening on my phone as it was read to me by Android text-to-speech. My assessment is that some concept of “sustainable” agriculture tramples on consideration of what might be the healthiest diet practices for individuals. If the science supported a high fat low carb diet you would not promote it because that is presumed to be unsustainable by the agricultural system.
As you know, according to the CDC something approaching half the adult population either has type 2 diabeties or is likely to develop it unless they make changes. The sustainable agriculture folks hate that statistic and hate to talk about it.
When I make food choices I’m thinking about my health and only about that. My diet is high in animal based foods because I believe it is healthier than what the Federal government recommends and I believe science research supports me. The government wants me to eat things more likely to cause illness because those things are easier to produce in larger quantities.
The USDA should not be influencing the dietary guidelines. Get them out of the converstion. If they say the healthiest diet is too resource intensive (unsustainable) then let’s go to work and solve that problem instead of encouraging people to eat food that makes them sick. In the mean time I mostly ignore your advice because my health is not your first concern. You need to be talking about what is heathiest for individuals and let the USDA figure out how that might be produced.
Thanks for inviting the public to sound off.
Charlie
Michigan
GentleBen
#7
Until the CEOs of Big Food and Big Pharm and their immediate families start losing limbs and dying of TDb2 then nothing is going to change in our nations. It has to be done on an individual basis until we outlive or breed them out.
Is that too radical?