The Straight Scoop About Health And Fitness

The American Dietetic Association has come out with a great list of the “Ten Red Flags of Junk Science.”

Science frequently does junk research but there is no area where this practice is more common than with nutrition and weight loss.

We are bombarded with research study after research study which only create confusion because they all seem so contradictory. There are two reasons for this:

* Doing good and valid research in nutrition and weight loss is enormously difficult and it’s this difficulty that leads to contradictory outcomes.

* The results of the research are inappropriately presented to the public.

It is this second reason that the American Dietetic Association is targeting. Here are their ten red flags you should watch out for:

1. Recommendations that promise a quick fix
2. Dire warnings of danger from a single complex study
3. Claims that sound too good to be true
4. Simplistic conclusions drawn from a complex study
5. Recommendations based on a single study
6. Dramatic statements that are refuted by reputable scientific organizations
7. Lists of “good” and “bad” foods
8. Recommendatons made to help sell a product
9. Recommendations based on studies published without peer review
10. Recommendations from studies that ignore differences among individuals or groups.

My advice? Ignore all scientific research reported on by the media. There is no way you can separate the wheat from the chaff.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Learn about another dietary supplement that seems to do no good

You may have heard that you should take folic acid to prevent heart disease.

Why? Because folic acid reduces homocysteine levels in the blood and high homocysteine levels have been associated with heart disease.

Cool idea and, up until recently, a lot of folks bought into this recommendation.

Well, it turns out it probably isn’t true.

Some researchers from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine did a “meta-analysis” of 12 clinical trials involving 52,000 participants and found that folic acid does NOT reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease or all-cause mortality.

Whoops!

You wonder how much money has been spent on folic acid in the hopes of receiving some health benefit.

Instead, the authors of the study suggest people’s time and money should be focused elsewhere:

“It is important to focus on strategies of proven benefit in the prevention of cardiovascular disease, including smoking cessation, lipid reduction, treatment of hypertenion and diabetes, and maintenance of a healthy weight and physical activity.”

Bravo!

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

Nutrtion labels were put on foods years ago so consumers could use the presented facts to “control their caloric intake and weight, and to make healthier food choices.”

How do you think this is working?

Well, the FDA has decided — not too well.

And, they’ve concluded the problem is that consumers don’t know how to use these labels. Therefore, they have launched a web-based learning program called “Make Your Calories Count.”

The interactive program features an animated character called “Labelman” who leads the viewer through a series of exercises on the food label. The program includes exercises to help consumers explore the relationship between serving sizes and calories, while they learn how to limit certain nutrients and get enough of others.

The FDA — to keep the program simple — presents just two nutrients that should be limited (saturated fat and sodium) and two that should be consumed in adequate amounts (fiber and calcium).

So, what do you think? Is this website going to finally allow food labels to have their promised postive impact on our health and weight?

The Center for Science in Public Interest doen’t think so. They are quoted as saying, “the governement is just delusional if they think yet another website and brochure will make a dent in the obesity epdemic.”

I agree.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness

For years diabetics have been told to take extra vitamin E to gain the benefits of its antioxidant properties.

As a result, worldwide vitamin E supplement sales are enormous.

I first remember reading about the incredible health benefits of vitamin E back in the 60s. Several popular health books were published which promoted this “magical” substance.

Since then there have been a few epidemiological studies suggesting these nutritionists were right. However, such studies can’t fully address biases due to selection of the study population, measurement error of deitary vitamin E intake and other residual confounding errors.

Therefore, what has been needed is a well-designed and well-conducted randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, conducted over a long period of time, that would avoid all these biases.

Well, such a trial has been completed.

Researchers studied almost 40,000 U.S. women over a 10 year period. About half the group received 600 IU of vitamin E every other day and the other half received a placebo.

During the ten-year follow-up, there were 827 cases of diabetes in the vitamin E group and 869 in the placebo group. In other words — statistically — there were no differences between the two groups.

Here is the conclusion of the study as stated by the researchers:

“In this large trial with 10-year follow-up, alternate-day does of 600IU of vitamin E provided NO significant benefit for type 2 diabetes in initially healthy women.”

This is just one recent study of many showing that taking a vitamin E supplement provides NO health benefit. In fact, a couple of recent studies have demonstrated a negative health impact (increased mortality) from taking vitamin E.

Allen Oelschlaeger
Author of Finally, the Straight Scoop About Weight, Nutrition, and Fitness