Re:Anti-Salt Narrative Needs a Shakeup
by acdha on Sunday June 17, 2018 @11:02AM
(#17332644)
One important distinction is between research and the dietary guidelines issued. Most of the bad advice given in the 20th century was not well supported but there were strong ideological reasons which pushed it forward.
There was an interesting interview with one of the people on the Nixon-era group which was repurposed from focusing on hunger to the obesity crisis on the political aspects:
«Dr. Mark Hegsted, professor of nutrition at Harvard University and one of the three nutritionists who helped write the report, said:
"There will undoubtedly be many people who will say we have not proven our point; we have not demonstrated that the dietary modifications we recommend will yield the dividends expected.
"The question to be asked therefore, is not why should we change our diet, but why not. "What are the risks associated with eating less meat, less fat, less saturated fat, less cholesterol, less sugar, less salt and more fruits, vegetables, unsaturated fat - and cereal products - especially whole-grain cereals? There are none that can be identified and important benefits can be expected."»
I don’t think they set out intending to make the problem worse, or that they were getting paid off by industry, and they weren’t wrong about everything but the President wanted To Do Something and they went ahead even though the evidence for salt, fat, cholesterol, and meat was very sketchy at the time and generally debunked with a decade or so when people did bigger studies with good methodology, in particular having good control groups. The problem is that by then you had a bunch of senior people whose careers had been based on this who weren’t keen on substantially reversing the recommendations and so it’s taken much longer to reverse them than it did to create them.
There was an interesting interview with one of the people on the Nixon-era group which was repurposed from focusing on hunger to the obesity crisis on the political aspects:
«Dr. Mark Hegsted, professor of nutrition at Harvard University and one of the three nutritionists who helped write the report, said:
"There will undoubtedly be many people who will say we have not proven our point; we have not demonstrated that the dietary modifications we recommend will yield the dividends expected.
"The question to be asked therefore, is not why should we change our diet, but why not. "What are the risks associated with eating less meat, less fat, less saturated fat, less cholesterol, less sugar, less salt and more fruits, vegetables, unsaturated fat - and cereal products - especially whole-grain cereals? There are none that can be identified and important benefits can be expected."»
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1977/01/20/...
I don’t think they set out intending to make the problem worse, or that they were getting paid off by industry, and they weren’t wrong about everything but the President wanted To Do Something and they went ahead even though the evidence for salt, fat, cholesterol, and meat was very sketchy at the time and generally debunked with a decade or so when people did bigger studies with good methodology, in particular having good control groups. The problem is that by then you had a bunch of senior people whose careers had been based on this who weren’t keen on substantially reversing the recommendations and so it’s taken much longer to reverse them than it did to create them.