Bad science and politically motivated low fat dietary guidelines finally exposed and ditched!

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Recent (20/02/2015) New York Times article by Nina Teicholz (**):

The Government’s Bad Diet Advice

Quotes

First, last fall, experts on the committee that develops the country’s dietary guidelines acknowledged that they had ditched the low-fat diet. On Thursday, that committee’s report was released, with an even bigger change: It lifted the longstanding caps on dietary cholesterol, saying there was “no appreciable relationship” between dietary cholesterol and blood cholesterol.
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Instead of accepting that this evidence was inadequate to give sound advice, strong-willed scientists overstated the significance of their studies.
Much of the epidemiological data underpinning the government’s dietary advice comes from studies run by Harvard’s school of public health. In 2011, directors of the National Institute of Statistical Sciences analyzed many of Harvard’s most important findings and found that they could not be reproduced in clinical trials.
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In 2013, government advice to reduce salt intake (which remains in the current report) was contradicted by an authoritative Institute of Medicine study[*]. And several recent meta-analyses have cast serious doubt on whether saturated fats are linked to heart disease, as the dietary guidelines continue to assert.

Uncertain science should no longer guide our nutrition policy. Indeed, cutting fat and cholesterol, as Americans have conscientiously done, may have even worsened our health. In clearing our plates of meat, eggs and cheese (fat and protein), we ate more grains, pasta and starchy vegetables (carbohydrates). Over the past 50 years, we cut fat intake by 25 percent and increased carbohydrates by more than 30 percent, according to a new analysis of government data. Yet recent science has increasingly shown that a high-carb diet rich in sugar and refined grains increases the risk of obesity, diabetes and heart disease — much more so than a diet high in fat and cholesterol.

It’s not that health authorities weren’t warned. “They are not acting on the basis of scientific evidence, but on the basis of a plausible but untested idea,” Dr. Edward H. Ahrens Jr., a top specialist at Rockefeller University and prominent critic of the growing doctrine on dietary fats and cholesterol, cautioned back in the ’80s.
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Since the very first nutritional guidelines to restrict saturated fat and cholesterol were released by the American Heart Association in 1961, Americans have been the subjects of a vast, uncontrolled diet experiment with disastrous consequences. We have to start looking more skeptically at epidemiological studies and rethinking nutrition policy from the ground up.
Until then, we would be wise to return to what worked better for previous generations: a diet that included fewer grains, less sugar and more animal foods like meat, full-fat dairy and eggs.

Other links:

*) She probably meant this report: Sodium Intake in Populations: Assessment of Evidence (14/05/2015)

**) Nina Teicholz, author of “The Big Fat Surprise: Why Butter, Meat and Cheese Belong in a Healthy Diet.”

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2015/02/useless-low-fat-dietary-guidelines-by.html

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2015/01/salt-intake-not-correlated-with.html

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2015/01/are-some-diets-mass-murder.html

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2013/05/dietary-fats-undeserved-bad-reputation.html

http://stan-heretic.blogspot.ca/2013/10/lesson-from-medical-history-beware-of.html



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US to drop anti-cholesterol food guidelines!

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Cholesterol in food is "no longer a concern"!   It is now OK to eat bacon and eggs!

From Commons.Wiki 

U.S. may lower cholesterol's level of threat to health: report

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. advisory panel reviewing national dietary guidelines has decided to drop its caution against eating cholesterol-laden food, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

At a December meeting, the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee discussed its decision to no longer deem cholesterol a "nutrient of concern," according to the Washington Post.
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What happened to those scientists and medical doctors who, for many decades have been signing and propagating the anti-cholesterol guidelines?  I wonder, what could be the overall health damage estimate, caused by those recommendations, to date?
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Useless low fat dietary guidelines by governments, no scientific justification!

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Open Heart/BMJ just published a meta-study:

Evidence from randomised controlled trials did not support the introduction of dietary fat guidelines in 1977 and 1983: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Objectives National dietary guidelines were introduced in 1977 and 1983, by the US and UK governments, respectively, with the ambition of reducing coronary heart disease (CHD) by reducing fat intake. ...

Conclusions

Dietary recommendations were introduced for 220 million US and 56 million UK citizens by 1983, in the absence of supporting evidence from RCTs.

Discussion
The main findings of the present meta-analysis of the six RCTs [Randomized Controlled Trials] available at the time of issuing dietary guidelines in the US and UK indicate that all-cause mortality was identical at 370 in the intervention and control groups. There was no statistically significant difference in deaths from CHD. The reductions in mean serum cholesterol levels were significantly higher in the intervention groups; this did not result in significant differences in CHD or all-cause mortality.
It is a widely held view that reductions in cholesterol are healthful per se. The original RCTs did not find any relationship between dietary fat intake and deaths from CHD or all-causes, despite significant reductions in cholesterol levels in the intervention and control groups. This undermines the role of serum cholesterol levels as an intermediary to the development of CHD and contravenes the theory that reducing dietary fat generally and saturated fat particularly potentiates a reduction in CHD.
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There was best practice, randomised controlled trial, evidence available to the dietary committees, which was not considered and should have been. The results of the present meta-analysis support the hypothesis that the available RCTs did not support the introduction of dietary fat recommendations in order to reduce CHD risk or related mortality. Two recent publications have questioned the alleged relationship between saturated fat and CHD and called for dietary guidelines to be reconsidered.31 ,32 The present review concludes that dietary advice not merely needs review; it should not have been introduced.

Actual data from the publication:

References and links:

http://www.zoeharcombe.com/blog/

Interestingly, the original studies at that time produced similar similar conclusions of non-supporting the reduction of dietary fat.  The following quotes are from Zoë Harcombe's blog (one of the main author of the above quoted study):

The studies’ own conclusions.  These are the verbatim conclusions from each of the studies:

1965 Rose Corn and olive oil: “It is concluded that under the circumstances of this trial corn oil cannot be recommended as a treatment of ischaemic heart disease. It is most unlikely to be beneficial, and it is possibly harmful.” (ref 9)

1965 Research Committee Low-fat diet: “A low-fat diet has no place in the treatment of myocardial infarction” (ref 10) [heart attack].

1968 MRC soya-bean oil: “There is no evidence from the London trial that the relapse-rate in myocardial infarction is materially affected by the unsaturated fat content of the diet used.” (ref 11)

1969 Dayton LA Veterans study: “Total longevity was not affected favorably in any measurable or significant degree… For this reason, and because of the unresolved question concerning toxicity, we consider our own trial, with or without the support of other published data, to have fallen short of providing a definitive and final answer concerning dietary prevention of heart disease.” (ref 12)

1970 Leren Oslo Diet Heart study: “Epidemiological studies have demonstrated several factors associated with the risk of developing first manifestations of coronary heart disease. Blood lipids, blood pressure and cigarette smoking are such risk variables… In spite of the small numbers this observation lends some support to the view that the multi-factorial approach is the best way to the solution of the coronary heart disease problem.”(ref 13)

1978 Woodhill Sydney Diet Heart Study: “Survival was significantly better in the P [control] Group.” “It must be concluded that the lipid hypothesis has gained little support from secondary intervention studies.” (ref 14)
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