Science and Health. - The Evidence Distorted

Summary by John Stephen Veitch.

We would hope and expect that in modern democratic countries our health system would be supported by reliable science and that public policy would be a source of the good health advice based on the best evidence. Sadly that's not the case. At the political level, politicians listen more closely to the people who fund political parties. Besides government agencies are set up to encourage and promote local farming and local industry. So when the USA created the National Dietary Guidelines, they were controlled by the US Department of Agriculture. The dietary advice to eat lots of "healthy whole grains" is driven by massive surpluses of US grown wheat and corn.

Several senators on "The Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Need," (1977) including George McGovern, had lost weight using the vegetarian diet promoted by Nathan Pritikin. Nick Mottern, an employee in McGovern's office, a journalist by profession, and a member of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, carried the prime responsibility for writing the report. The report carries a vegetarian bias from the beginning. Finally, when Senator George McGovern, in negotiation with the National Live Stock and Meat Board, changed the recommendation regarding the place of red meat in the diet, Nick Mottern resigned.

In the same way health advocacy organisations are usually not funded by any independent source of funds. Heart Disease Societies, Cancer Societies and Diabetes Societies for instance are dependent for funding on donations. The public may offer a little, but these groups become dependent on commercial sources of funding, and that constrains what they can say. You can't bite the hand that feeds you.

In 2006, judge Gladys Kessler found that the tobacco industry had devised and executed a scheme to defraud consumers ... about the potential hazards of cigarettes, hazards that their own internal documents proved they had known about since the 1950's. They created and funded organisations to spread misinformation, the tobacco Industry Committee for Pubic Information, and the Tobacco Industry Research Committee, The George C Marshall Institute, The Center for Indoor Air Research, and The Heartland Institute as examples.

There were publications supposedly independent, Tobacco and Health, The Indoor Air Journal, and Science Fortnightly, containing articles that give smoking a free pass.

They funded University professors to produce reports favourable to the industry, such as Dr. Clarence Cook Little who produced "A Scientific Perspective on the Cigarette Controversy." Almost 200,000 copies were sent to doctors, health workers and health administrators and politicians. In 1981 US public expenditure on research into smoking was $300,000, while the industry spent $6.3 million.

Dietary Recommendations Today

Official Dietary Guidelines

Around the world most countries, lacking the funding and resources of the USA, since 1982, have essentially copied the US guidelines. Slowly as the problems with those guidelines have become glaringly obvious the national guidelines in various countries are becoming more independent, starting in Scandinavia about 10 years ago. Today the guidelines in the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are outdated perhaps 10 or 20 years. In Canada 200 doctors wrote to the Ministry of Health demanding an update. South Africa, has recently updated the guidelines for infants, but the old guidelines for adults remain. There has been a very public "trial" of Dr Timothy Noakes attracting public attention from 2013 until early 2017. There's wide public knowledge of the issue, but in South Africa, but it's not politically possible to have a recommended diet that the poor cannot afford. So the revised South African guidelines will continue to recommend a diet based on wheat and corn, we suspect.

Comment on the current New Zealand Guidelines is here. This link takes you to comment on the 2010 American Guidelines.

Vegetarian and Vegan

In the USA, the influence of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, on the life of the nation and on politics is substantial. Most Seventh Day Adventist's strive to be vegetarians, and even "better" to be vegan. The Seventh Day Adventist Church has it's origins in the USA, 1863.

The Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics was founded in 1917 in Cleveland, Ohio, by a group of women led by Leana Frances Cooper and the Academy's first president, Lulu G. Graves. Leana Cooper wrote the first text book on Dietetics which was notable for at least the next 30 years. During that time the principles of Dietetics spread to all English speaking parts of the world. If you want to understand why a vegetarian diet is seen everywhere as the "gold standard" diet, the reason is right there. The Kellogg's empire and the Sanitarium Health Food Company have their roots in the Seventh Day Adventist Church. The Church has established schools, training institutes and universities as a means of extending their medical and nutritional philosophy around the world. They have been very successful. They sit at the decision table for nutritional policy in many counties (probably all) and they are a financial and policy making contributor to the World Health Organization. So don't be surprised when WHO tells you that eating meat causes cancer and that red meat is undesirable for heart health. That is a well planned and carefully executed marketing message.

In the general Christian community there is also a strong feeling that killing animals for food is undesirable. In the Bible, Levitical Law made distinctions between "clean"( kosher) and "unclean" foods. Many other religious groups have similar beliefs, and special rituals to acknowledge the life of the animal and the gift of it's death.

The Dietary Guidelines for every country include guidelines for vegetarians. Most universities that teach nutrition have a course on vegetarian diets. Here's Harvard Medical School, and this is WebMD (Which seems to be Medically based).

Vegetarian and vegan websites are common on the Internet. Popular doctors who stress a vegetarian of vegan lifestyle are also easy to find. Dr. Michael Greger, M.D., Dr Neil Barnard, M.D.; The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, and Nutrition Facts.

I once thought that a vegetarian diet was some sort of gold standard. I now believe that's a mistake. The websites above try to make a science based case for a vegetarian diet. I now believe that is unwise. Open Future Health comments here.

There are scientific papers written both supporting and pointing out the weaknesses of making the choice of eating a vegetarian diet. Such as Plant Based Diets; or Health Effects of Vegan Diets.

American Heart Association

This is a good case of follow the money. Heart disease is hugely profitable for doctors, hospitals and Medical Universities. But the profit is in treating people with heart disease emergencies. The AHA and Harvard Medical School are on the same page. In the 1990's Prof. Gerald Reaven, a fellow at Harvard, proposed that metabolic syndrome, indicated a decline of health that leads to both type II diabetes and cardio-vascular disease. There are many non-drug strategies and non-surgical strategies to prevent a future heart problem at this stage, but there's no profitability in that.

The American Heart Association promotes the idea that saturated fats create LDL-Cholesterol and that this is the source of atherosclerotic plaques, the breakdown of a plaque is likely to block an artery and cause a cardiac arrest, or get trapped in the brain causing a stroke. The American Heart Association promotes the use of surgical procedures, coronary bypasses, and catherizations. The Heart and Stroke Foundation of South Africa, adopts a similar position, and was very critical of Prof. Timothy Noakes.

The Open Future Health web site has many references to heart disease. Here are the main pages. First, the Framingham Heart Study, the longest running and most famous study. President Eisenhower focused the attention of the USA on heart disease. Using the advice still common today, he made no progress. At that time Norman Jolliffe enrolled 1100 men in the Anti-Coronary Club, sure that heart disease could be defeated. From 1973 to 1982, the Multiple Risk Factor Intervention Trial was conducted. As the 20th Century ended the Rolls Royce of all health studies the Women's Health Initiative consigned most of our cherished beliefs about heart disease to the rubbish bin. Time to start again. Forty years ago doctors told us, "what causes heart disease," yet today, they are no longer so sure.

Finally the trial of Prof. Timothy Noakes produces evidence about heart disease, which we try to summarize for you.

If vegan diets are not healthy, and vegetarian diets are possible, but not recommended, and if the Standard American Diet, most of us have tried to eat for the last 40 years, "has no health benefits," where does that leave us? The only diet that has many studies in it's favour, especially in regards to avoiding heart disease is the Mediterranean Diet. That also has a problem. Although Ancel Keys called the diet of Italy and Greece a Mediterranean Diet, there was no such thing. People ate local food, and every region had a distinctly different diet. But when Americans flocked to Italy and Greece to "discover the magic diet" the tourism industry in both countries responded with enthusiasm. There were soon health tours and seminars and cooking classes to be had, all of them different. What is, and is not a Mediterranean Diet, is still poorly defined.

American Diabetes Association

Diabetes Associations are trapped by an old and wrong idea, and lack of funding. That thrusts them into the arms of commercial sponsors. Diabetes is described as a lifelong disease that people control by the use of insulin. Using this technique diabetes always gets worse and finally kills.

The old idea begins with the notion that the brain is glucose dependent, and that maintenance of a low but constant level of glucose in the blood was essential. So it follows on, that a diabetic person should top-up glucose at every meal and have small snacks during the day as necessary. The glucose top-up is carbohydrate in the diet. Excess glucose in the diet is then controlled by a tablet, usually metformin, or when things get serious by insulin injections.

Dr Tim Noakes speaks passionately about diabetes. He lost his father to the disease, and he himself is type II diabetic. He speaks about this often during his trial. Open Future Health writes about diabetes on three pages. Is Type II Diabetes curable? Type II Diabetes. Type One Diabetes.

Modern thinking is that type one diabetes is very controllable by diet, and that type II diabetes can be eliminated by diet. The recommendations of Diabetes Associations around the world are about 100% wrong.

American Cancer Society

American Cancer Society has a extensive web site that tries to offer help and reassurance to cancer patients. That's a wonderful effort, but it doesn't solve the problem.

The fundamental idea is that cancers are caused by changes in the genes. Cancer Societies around the world have focused funding into genetic research with little to show for it. The financial backers of Cancer Societies, profit from the status quo. That's a trap.

In fifty years of research and intensive effort to improve cancer treatment, the long term survival rate has hardly moved at all. Treatment of the symptoms of cancer has only marginally improved. In his book "The End of Illness," Dr. David Agus, reconciles himself with the failure to solve the problems caused by cancer. He concludes that the idea that cancer is caused by genetic disorders leads nowhere, it's wrong. He recommends that we must get to know our bodies, and become our own personal health advocates.

In the last ten years, some researchers have come back to the old idea that cancer is a metabolic disease. New ideas about diet, and the possibility of displacing glucose metabolism with ketonic metabolism, opens up new possibilities for stopping cancers from forming and for controlling cancers that one might have. Open Future Health writes on Cancer research here. Cancers are unknown or rare in primitive societies, so does something in the modern environment or in modern food drive the formation of cancers? This page discusses Cancer as a Metabolic Disease.

Food Industry Groups

The Dietitians Association of Australia, like dietitians associations around the world are dependent on commercial sponsors. The problem exists in South Africa, in England and in New Zealand, probably everywhere. In South Africa there has been wide publicity of the failures of The Association of Dietetics South Africa and the Nutrition Society of South Africa, with regard to the trial of Prof. Timothy Noakes.

Sugar Australia is a significant sponsor of the University of Sydney, the Dietitians Association of Australia, the Australian Heart Foundation and the Australian Diabetes Association. Here's a link.

The British Nutrition Foundation is a registered charity, it has the face of public good. However it promotes the "healthy Diet" that's making us all so fat, and causing metabolic syndrome. There are hundreds of examples of similar "charities" around the world. They are "disciplined" but the need to retain their funding sources.

Many commercial companies promote "Good Health" as a benefit from buying their product. Kellogg's, and Nestlé are the most well known examples. Here is the promotion of Weetbix in New Zealand, and the promotion of Milo. Even Coca-Cola tries to sell itself as a energy drink for sportsmen.

Perhaps the most harmful scam on the market is the idea that people who exercise need continuous hydration. This is the sales technique to promotes Gatorade and "V" and a dozen others. Why is everyone at the gym carrying a water bottle? People used to run marathons with no drink stations at all, and no ill effects. After drink stations were created people started to have "hydration problems" never lack of hydration, over hydration. This has caused at least 13 deaths, all women, one of them a doctor, who took the need to drink a lot of water seriously.

Sponsored University Research

Harvard Medical School is on record as accepting money from the sugar industry to give sugar a pass mark as part of a "healthy diet."

There must be thousands of examples. All the leading university researchers in the UK, have financial ties with industry. That's how they get the funding to do research, it doesn't come from the government. Above I note the University of Sydney, and it's funding by the Australian sugar industry

Everyone has Something to Sell

So it's a market-place. Organisations are formed, perhaps with excellent intent. But funding is short and funding without strings from the public or government is never enough. So commercial sources of funding are welcomed. Even though they always claim that the funding doesn't influence the research or the reports written, that's clearly not the case.

As time goes on, new information makes the established position of some leading institutions outdated. That seems to be happening with regard to heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Dietitians Associations around the world are in trouble. Their education is woefully poor. Biochemistry has become increasingly important in nutrition research, and most dietitians have little or no knowledge of biochemistry. Traditional nutrition courses have focused more on home economics, than on hard science. That's changing, but it will take another 20 years to correct the situation.

We have a comical situation in Australia and New Zealand. In 2014 the Dietitians Association of Australia, had dietitian Jennifer Elliot banned from the society and dismissed from her job for recommending a LCHF diet. Tasmanian, Dr Gary Fettke, a surgeon, was banned from talking in public about diet. In Australasia, Dr Libby Weaver, a biochemist, speaks a lot of good sense about diet. She goes out of her way to write in a way that does not directly contradict what the dietitians in Australia and New Zealand teach, but she doesn't agree with them either. In contrast, Auckland University of Technology academic, Dr Caryn Zinn, thought she could speak freely. That's not quite the case, apparently she has been warned by Dietitians New Zealand, to be careful not to break their rules about public statements.

It was never intended that you should be able to find a clear, science based statement about what to eat. Too many vested interests profit from your confusion. Your good health is not their objective. You must take the advice of Dr. David Agus, and get your own knowledge, so you can be an advocate for your own health.