Researchers Say...
The office was buzzing today with physicians telling other physicians about the "exciting" news published in The Journal of the American Medical Association on a huge, multi-year study of diet and women's health.
Now, I must tell you that I always have a problem with blanket statements that will, invariably, be on the evening news in the form of "researchers say…" and then give me some statement like being a coach potato is actually good for you. Of course that's a gross exaggeration on my part, but you know what I mean.
In its simplest, most incorrect form, this is being seen as indicating it doesn't matter whether you eat a low fat or a who-cares-how-much-fat diet because it made no difference in certain measures of cardiac conditions in the women. As I always say to my students and patients, what's the problem here?
Before you stare down that cheesecake or turn your nose up at a burger (not that I'm trying to coax you into either), think what the problem with the above interpretation of the research might be.
For one thing, there are many more things involved in health than your diet. True, high fat diets probably aren't good for you (I leave that debate to the dieticians), but diet is only one thing to consider when you're thinking about health. There's lifestyle, genetic inheritance, exercise and stress level. Yes, stress level can, according to some research, contribute to problems in cardiac functioning and cholesterol levels.
So, where was the discussion about stress and all the other factors? It got lost somewhere after the first three paragraphs I guess and that most impressive statement about diet not being terribly important was blown out of all proportion. This is a glowing example of simplistic thinking if ever I saw one.
Now, I must tell you that I always have a problem with blanket statements that will, invariably, be on the evening news in the form of "researchers say…" and then give me some statement like being a coach potato is actually good for you. Of course that's a gross exaggeration on my part, but you know what I mean.
In its simplest, most incorrect form, this is being seen as indicating it doesn't matter whether you eat a low fat or a who-cares-how-much-fat diet because it made no difference in certain measures of cardiac conditions in the women. As I always say to my students and patients, what's the problem here?
Before you stare down that cheesecake or turn your nose up at a burger (not that I'm trying to coax you into either), think what the problem with the above interpretation of the research might be.
For one thing, there are many more things involved in health than your diet. True, high fat diets probably aren't good for you (I leave that debate to the dieticians), but diet is only one thing to consider when you're thinking about health. There's lifestyle, genetic inheritance, exercise and stress level. Yes, stress level can, according to some research, contribute to problems in cardiac functioning and cholesterol levels.
So, where was the discussion about stress and all the other factors? It got lost somewhere after the first three paragraphs I guess and that most impressive statement about diet not being terribly important was blown out of all proportion. This is a glowing example of simplistic thinking if ever I saw one.
4 Comments:
Dear Dr. Farrell;
I don't have much of a reply, except that I do enjoy your blogs.
Who sponsored this research? It reminds me of previous news about research saying chocoalte it good for your health (sponsored by a chocolate manufacturer)...
Also, who were the participants and how were they selected? Were lifestyle, genetics, habits, current health status taken into consideration?
I hope most people see these "news flashes" for what they are... flashes in the pan, usually. Like in Ohio when we used to say if you don't like the weather, just wait a day and it will change.... so will the "news flashes"...there seem to be as many new health discoveries as there are diets that show on woman's magazine covers. .... one just has to wait and and a new one will be along shortly and then will fade away like the rest.
Tasker
Tasker
Dear Dr. Farrell;
An interesting column from FOXNEWS that attempts to debunk nearly ALL the health/diet/lifestyle research results. Thought you might be interested.
~Tasker
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E-MAIL STORY PRINTER FRIENDLY FOXFAN CENTRAL
FOXNEWS.COM HOME > VIEWS
Low-Fat Diet Myth Busted
Thursday, February 09, 2006
By Steven Milloy
The widely-believed notion that low-fat diets are good for your health went “poof” this week – although the busting of that myth shouldn’t be news to regular readers of this column.
Low-fat diets didn’t reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease, colorectal cancer or invasive breast cancer, according to three large studies published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The researchers divided 48,835 women into two groups based on diet-- one group with 19,541 women consumed a low fat diet and the other group with 29,294 women consumed their usual diets -- and followed the women for 8.1 years.
The most significant result of the $415 million study is that low-fat diets don’t reduce heart disease risk. As the researchers put it, “Over [an average] of 8.1 years, a dietary intervention that reduced total fat intake and increased intake of vegetables, fruits and grains did not significantly reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke or cardiovascular disease in postmenopausal women and achieved only modest effects on cardiovascular risk factors…”
Low-fat diets didn’t even improve heart health among the population of women who had heart disease at the beginning of the study. In fact, the low-fat diet regimen was associated with a slightly increased risk of heart disease among these women.
(Story continues below)
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Think about that the next time you turn down the scrumptious banana-pecan French toast with a side of sausage in favor of choking down some tasteless low-fat cereal with skim milk.
So how did the low-fat myth come to be so widely accepted by the public in the first place? For the last 30 years we’ve been constantly bombarded with the message that low-fat is healthy – a message first broadcast by government and public health nannies, and then reinforced on a daily basis by the food industry selling low-fat products at high prices and by pharmaceutical companies selling cholesterol-lowering drugs in an effort to turn us into a “Lipitor Nation.”
But as has been previously pointed out in this column, scientific study has never supported the dietary propaganda thrust upon us during the past three decades.
Politically correct dietary theory, for example, postulates that high-fat diets -- particularly diets high in animal and saturated fats – can raise cholesterol levels to unhealthy levels. But in the much-vaunted Framingham Heart Study involving 5,200 men and women who have been extensively studied in over 1,000 published reports since 1948, high cholesterol levels were not associated with increased heart disease risk after age 47.
After age 47, in fact, those whose cholesterol went down had the highest risk of a heart attack. “For each 1 mg/dl drop of cholesterol there was an 11 percent increase in coronary and total mortality,” reported the study's authors.
There are also the data from the ongoing highly-touted Nurses Health Study involving about 90,000 nurses studied since 1976 by Harvard University researchers. A 1997 interim report published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that total fat intake, animal fat intake, saturated fat intake and cholesterol intake weren’t associated with coronary heart disease.
Then just last a month, a study published in the Jan. 4 Journal of the American Medical Association involving the same group of women in the current study reported that low fat diets were associated with only moderate and temporary weight loss – an average of 4.8 pounds after the first year, after which most of the weight was regained.
None of this is to say that there aren’t some people with certain genetic backgrounds or medical conditions who might benefit from certain physician-prescribed dietary changes, but generally speaking, low-fat diets don’t appear to confer any significant health benefits that are detectable on a population scale.
“Low-fat,” of course, is not the only dietary myth of the last 30 years that has been debunked – low-salt and high-fiber diets have also been exposed as junk science.
A 2005 analysis of 13 previous studies involving 725,000 individuals published in the Dec. 14 Journal of the American Medical Association reported that high fiber diets did not reduce the risk of colon cancer.
Since 1995, 10 studies have examined whether lower sodium diets produce health benefits. Not a single one of those studies showed that lower sodium diets improved health outcomes for the general population.
What are some other dietary myths that may soon go by the wayside? The sugar scare is a prime candidate. Researchers have been trying for years to link sugar consumption with type 2 diabetes, and obesity in adults and children -- without success.
Another endangered scare involves so-called “trans fats” – vegetables oils altered to be firm at room temperature. In much the same mindless fashion that we were goaded into abandoning butter in the 1970s for high-trans fat margarines, we are now being pushed to consume only low-trans fat margarines -- even though no evidence indicates that trans fats are harmful or that a diet low in trans fats provides any health benefits.
The unfortunate fact is that, when it comes to diet and health, we’ve been misinformed, ripped off and unnecessarily medicated by junk scientists, behavior-control nannies and unscrupulous marketers in the government, public health community and the food and pharmaceutical industries. And, of course, let’s not forget the media that seldom miss opportunities to pump health scares and scams.
Steven Milloy publishes JunkScience.com and CSRwatch.com , and is an adjunct scholar at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
Respond to the
Wow! I can't believe what I just read from FOXNEWS. Everything I believed in about food and health recently has been debunked. I don't know whether I really can believe it! My husband has high blood pressure and I don't think I can tell him we can start buying things with more sodium in them again.
What in the end the research is telling us is, and what Dr. Farrell says, is that a heathly lifestyle consists of diet, exercise and mental well-being. Genetics factors in there too, as Dr. Farrell mentioned.
If I ate a high fat diet all the time I wouldn't weigh what I weigh right now. I love cheesecake but I haven't had one in a long time. Seems to me I should have one real soon. Perhaps for Valentine's Day!
Cheesecake is a comfort food for me. So I deserve it! Comfort food - Decrease in stress. Smoothies - Less stress. Ice Cream - Less Stress.
Need I say more.
Herspirit1
My friend, you've put it beautifully. I just saw a NY Times article on how journalists are now becoming wary of articles even in the professional journals. Seems some medical professionals will do quite a bit to see their articles in print. Like a colleague of mine, who went for a medical test and was offered an opportunity to be in a clinical trial.
My friend asked what it would cost and what the risks were. The young resident told her it wouldn't cost anything because they'd write it up so her health insurance would pay for all the tests they would order. She asked if she really needed the tests and how would they get unnecessary testing paid for, if she didn't. He assured her that they'd write it up so it was deemed "medically necessary" for these expensive tests.
My friend indicated that would be unethical and, probably, fraud. As she walked out of his office, the resident told her, "Some people just die, if they don't enroll in this protocol."
A bit of unethical behavior and fear was his response in public. One wonders what he and his extremely famous supervisor would do in private.
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