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Science of healthy eating

dallasjustice

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and more . . .
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)32252-3/fulltext#relAudio
This is an enormous Lancet published European epidemiological study called the “PURE” Study. Here are the findings:
FA0863C6-E089-4F66-AFA2-8B4680186AC5.jpeg
 

dallasjustice

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Dr. David Klurfeld is a top USDA experimental nutrition scientist. He does mostly animinal research. He also served on the WHO (World Health Organisation) IARC panel which declared that meat causes cancer. Here is a paper which explains how the WHO cherry picked (no pun intended) strictly associational studies and excluded randomized control trial animinal experiments using animinal predisposed to cancer. The IARC also excluded evidence which showed a low fat (low red meat) diet in human cancer patients had no beneficial effect. They also discarded the enormous Women’s Health Initiative data also showing no association between low fat and cancer.
6419B9CF-0ABB-48A3-B28E-C7D6D69B4D87.jpeg


I think the funniest one is the one where mice were fed bacon and it showed to have an anti-cancer effect.
https://academic.oup.com/af/article-pdf/8/3/5/25516151/vfy009.pdf
 

RayDunzl

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Mmmm... Bacon....

 

dallasjustice

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Nutritional Epidemiology is totally broken. It’s not real science. The problem is that most, if not all, of the dietary recommendations made over the last 50 years are based on this type of faulty data.

John Ioannidis is the most important statistics/research design and meta analysis researcher in this field. He’s a professor at Stanford. He’s written numerous papers demonstrating how broken medical research is today.

Below is a talk he gave via video conference at the BMJ/Swiss Re conference last summer. I love his response to Walter Willet. The bottom line is that you can’t rely on nutritional epidemiology to give the public dietary recommendations. What you think you know about nutrition from “common knowledge” is most likely wrong.
https://www.swissre.com/institute/r...-for-thought-john-ioannidis-presentation.html
 

dallasjustice

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Fiona Godlee is the Editor of the BMJ and the moderator for the above “miracle” nutrition conference. Below you can see the debate/discussion she moderates concerning the high fat/low carb diet. Enjoy.
 

dallasjustice

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Largest epidemiology study of various vegetarian diet and all cause mortality done in the Southern Hemisphere. No benefit WRT all cause mortality. IOW, vegetarians didn’t live longer than the meat eaters. Because epidemiology can’t really control for the well known “healthy user bias” associated with vegetarians, I’d bet the vegetarians in this study would have lived longer had they eaten meats.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28040519/
 

andreasmaaan

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Because epidemiology can’t really control for the well known “healthy user bias” associated with vegetarians, I’d bet the vegetarians in this study would have lived longer had they eaten meats.

The study says it controlled for this. Either the study is flawed, in which case the results are worthless, or it isn't, in which case the conclusion you draw from it is different from the conclusion the study draws.
 

dallasjustice

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The study says it controlled for this. Either the study is flawed, in which case the results are worthless, or it isn't, in which case the conclusion you draw from it is different from the conclusion the study draws.
You can’t control for healthy user bias. Vegetarians are going to live a much healthier lifestyle on average. There’s no way around that. Even if they could control for it, being a vegetarian doesn’t seem to help one live longer.
 

andreasmaaan

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You can’t control for healthy user bias. Vegetarians are going to live a much healthier lifestyle on average. There’s no way around that. Even if they could control for it, being a vegetarian doesn’t seem to help one live longer.

The authors state:

"Following extensive adjustment for potential confounding factors there was no significant difference in all-cause mortality for vegetarians versus non-vegetarians [HR=1.16 (95% CI 0.93-1.45)]."

You seem to be saying that you know better than the authors what they can control for.
 

dallasjustice

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The authors state:

"Following extensive adjustment for potential confounding factors there was no significant difference in all-cause mortality for vegetarians versus non-vegetarians [HR=1.16 (95% CI 0.93-1.45)]."

You seem to be saying that you know better than the authors what they can control for.
Yes. Epidemiology is not science. It cannot prove anything because it is not a scientific experiment. The only thing it can do, at best, is propose a hypothesis or cast doubt on a hypothesis.

In this case, the hypothesis proposed by the OP and many others is that a vegetarian diet is superior to other diets and offer great health benefits. The epidemiology I posted simply casts serious doubt (to an objective person) on that hypothesis.
 

andreasmaaan

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Yes. Epidemiology is not science. It cannot prove anything because it is not a scientific experiment. The only thing it can do, at best, is propose a hypothesis or cast doubt on a hypothesis.

In this case, the hypothesis proposed by the OP and many others is that a vegetarian diet is superior to other diets and offer great health benefits. The epidemiology I posted simply casts serious doubt (to an objective person) on that hypothesis.

I have no problem with that.

My problem is with your drawing an additional conclusion from the study, namely that the authors failed to do what they said they did in adjusting for confounding variables.

If you have so little faith in the authors abilities (or integrity), don't trust their conclusions.
 

dallasjustice

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I have no problem with that.

My problem is with your drawing an additional conclusion from the study, namely that the authors failed to do what they said they did in adjusting for confounding variables.

If you have so little faith in the authors abilities (or integrity), don't trust their conclusions.
I said that was my opinion. I don’t draw sweeping conclusions from epidemiology. I do draw conclusions from controlled dietary intervention studies like the one a posted from Virta health about low carb diets and type 2 diabetes.
 

andreasmaaan

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I said that was my opinion. I don’t draw sweeping conclusions from epidemiology. I do draw conclusions from controlled dietary intervention studies like the one a posted from Virta health about low carb diets and type 2 diabetes.

Ok then, well it's your opinion (not your conclusion) that is not supported by that study.

And, as I mentioned earlier, your opinion is one that the authors of that study don't share. So if your opinion is correct, the study is flawed.
 

dallasjustice

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This is the PURE epidemiology study previously referenced.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(18)30160-9/fulltext

The thing to notice about this study is that the inevestigators do not draw official dietary advice conclusions from their data. They also honestly acknowledge the limitations with epidemiology and don’t pretend to control for possible confounders. Finally, they recommend that controlled trials be done to further examine dietary macro ratio relationships with hearth disease.

For personal reasons, I like the PURE study because it does throw a lot of cold water on the vegan agenda driven hypothesis that animinal fats are bad for humans and that we must eliminate them from our diet. I think it’s appropriate to use epidemiology in this way. IOW, it’s scientifically acceptable to use good epidemiology to criticize a popular internet hypothesis (myth).
 

svart-hvitt

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Science (The Lancet) has spoken. Report on sustainable eating published today.

From the abstract:

«The Commission quantitively describes a universal healthy reference diet, based on an increase in consumption of healthy foods (such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, and nuts), and a decrease in consumption of unhealthy foods (such as red meat, sugar, and refined grains) that would provide major health benefits, and also increase the likelihood of attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals».
Source: https://www.thelancet.com/commissions/EAT

Seems like @dallasjustice is on wrong side of science?

;)
 
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