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Diet Doctor Podcast · February 13, 2023 · 48m
Can We Improve the Dietary Guidelines?
Investigative journalist Nina Teicholz examines what needs to change in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans — the influence of food industry on the committee, the weak evidence behind low-fat recommendations, and how policy perpetuates bad science.
Highlights
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The Dietary Guidelines are based on weak evidence and influenced by food industry conflicts of interest
Teicholz: the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee includes members with food industry ties, uses a methodology that downgrades randomized controlled trials in favor of observational data, and has maintained a low-fat stance despite mounting evidence against it.•
The low-fat dietary era increased carbohydrate consumption and coincided with the obesity and diabetes epidemics
Teicholz: when the US adopted low-fat dietary guidelines in 1980, Americans replaced fat with carbohydrates (especially refined grains and sugar). Obesity prevalence tripled and type 2 diabetes doubled over the following 30 years.