TNC Leads Comment Drive to the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee

ACTION ALERT: We need your help!

Dear Friends,

I’m writing to you today to let you know there’s still an opportunity to include a question on low-carbohydrate diets for the next iteration of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Even if the chances are slim, we will not give up!

Last week, at the kick-off meeting for the 2025 Guidelines, an official from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) acknowledged that low-carbohydrate diets were, “the largest topic that we received comments on.” 

She was referring to the fact that last year, following the release of the draft list of scientific questions for the 2025 guidelines, the HHS together with the Dept. of Agriculture (USDA) held a public comment period asking for feedback on this list.

77% of the comments submitted asked the agencies to study the science on low-carbohydrate diets. Many of you participated, and it clearly didn’t go unnoticed.

There’s one more chance to make our voices heard!

The outside group of experts appointed to oversee the science, called the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, can apparently add its own questions to study. We are asking you to appeal to this committee, via a new public comment period. Your message will go directly to the committee members. 

Please submit a comment asking the Committee to include questions on low-carbohydrate diets and the health outcomes of weight loss and blood sugar control. You can submit your message here. If you'd like ideas for a comment, you can read the one we recently submitted here.

If you submitted a comment in March, you can find it here, and resubmit it here. [You can search your comment using your name, or search your inbox for “Comment Tracking Number” which you should have received by email from the email address “no-reply@regulations.gov”].

If no question is asked, no review gets done, and this would mean that the next set of guidelines would have little chance of including a low-carbohydrate option, which will be the law of the land until 2030. We cannot wait that long.

There are more than 8,000 papers published on low-carb/ketogenic diets including 885 papers on clinical trials, the most rigorous kind of research. It is unacceptable for the committee to continue ignoring this vast body of research.

USDA-HHS needs to respond to this clear demand by the American public.

What to do

Go to the comment page:

Urge the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee members to include a question on low-carbohydrate diets and the health outcomes weight loss and blood sugar control as part of the set of scientific questions to be considered for the 2025-2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. (We’ve chosen these health outcomes to comply with the fact that the Guidelines are concerned only with the prevention, not treatment, of disease. This may seem ludicrous, but we are just playing by the rules here.)

In your own words explain why you think the government must explore the effect of a low-carbohydrate diet on health outcomes. Feel free to add your personal story.

Again, if you submitted a comment in March, you can find it here, and resubmit it here. [You can search your comment using your name, or search your inbox for “Comment Tracking Number” which you should have received by email from the email address “no-reply@regulations.gov”].

Lastly, please take a screenshot of your comment and send it to info@nutritioncoalition.us so that we can tally up the comments.