Response to JAMA Article About 2015 Dietary Guidelines

A recent article appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) entitled “The 2015 US Dietary Guidelines: Lifting The Ban on Total Dietary Fat”.

Dr. Dariush Mozaffrarian and Dr. David S. Ludwig propose to eliminate the fat and cholesterol information from the Nutrition Facts Panel on food labels and to remove fat and cholesterol restrictions from the National Dietary Guidelines. These are very bad ideas.

Removing fat and cholesterol information from the food labels will lead people to believe that animal foods and fats/oils can be eaten liberally. The authors ignore decades of experimental, observational and clinical evidence showing the damaging effects of diets high in fat and saturated fat.

If it were up to me (as I’ve written many times) nutrition recommendations would not refer to single nutrients – neither macronutrients {fat, carbohydrates (starch and sugar) and protein} or micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, trace elements, phytonutrients and, antioxidants). Nutrition recommendations should be clear about which foods promote health (fruits, vegetables whole grains and legumes) and which foods promote disease (meat, fish, poultry, dairy, eggs, refined flour, refined sugars and oils).

The science of human nutrition deals with foods and how their combination of nutrients affect the human organism. It’s not about the study of specific nutrients taken out of context. (T. Colin Campbell calls this “Reductionism”) The approach of comparing foods is a simple educational approach that most people can understand.

It’s unlikely that the Dietary Guidelines are going to recommend what Americans need to hear anytime soon – that is to eliminate or strictly limit the foods that promote disease. Until a more (w)holistic approach to nutrition becomes mainstream, it would be a grave mistake to exonerate fat. As it happens, animal foods and added oils provide the majority of fat in the American diet and dietary cholesterol is only found in animal foods . In addition to restricting added sugars and refined grains, as the authors suggest, it’s imperative that fat and cholesterol restrictions remain.

One particular claim the authors make really ticks me off. They insist that Americans have been eating low fat diets for years as a response to previous dietary guidelines. This is laughable. It’s hard to imagine that Mozaffrarian and Ludwig really believe this. They use a 2014 Gallup Poll as their evidence that Americans are “still” trying to avoid fat. The typical American wouldn’t be able to identify a low-fat diet if it kicked her or him in the face.

Dr. Dean Ornish and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn Jr. have clearly demonstrated that low-fat Whole Food Plant Based (WFPB) diets can prevent and treat coronary artery disease (CAD). Their diets are truly low in fat as approximately 10% of total calories are derived from fat. The American Heart Association’s guidelines for fat are ridiculously liberal as they advise Americans to limit total fat intake to less than 25 – 35% of total calories. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recommends adults older than 19 years old to consume 20-35% of calories from fat. Contrary to popular belief, neither the AHA or the USDA has ever recommended dietary fat levels anywhere close to what’s been shown to prevent and even reverse CAD.

According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survery for 2009-2010, Americans consumed an average of 33% of their total calories as fat. This is not low-fat eating by any stretch of the imagination. It falls within the AHA’s and the USDA’s current guidelines, but it is well above the Ornish and Esselstyn guidelines. It’s such a shame that the typical American eating a high fat diet is considered by the misinformed and misguided to be eating a low-fat diet.  High fat diet promoters claim that they have a right to call the typical American diet a low fat diet.  This is true, but they also have the right to call shit perfume. Both claims are too ridiculous for reasonable people to take seriously.

Eliminating the fat restriction entirely will likely cause Americans to eat even more fat. You have a screw loose if you think eating more fat will reduce the over half million American deaths per year from heart disease.

If you think my reaction to this article is harsh, you aint seen nothing until you read Dr. John McDougall’s response.

One last thing, Dr. Mozaffrarian is on the Scientific Advisory Board of Unilever North America. 14 Food products appear on the Unilever USA web site. Here are 10 of the 14:

• Ben and Jerry’s ice cream
• Magnum ice cream
• Good Humor ice cream
• Breyer’s ice cream
• Klondike Bars
• Talenti Gelatos and Sorbettos
• Promise Margarine
• Country Crock Margarine
• I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter
• Hellman’s Mayonnaise

Just sayin…