Newsletter Update | December 2019
In This Issue:
- USDA Joins Food Industry Behemoths in New Group Focusing on Portion Control
- Obesity will affect Nearly Half of All Americans by 2030, says study
- New Group Aims to Ensure Low-Carb Diet is in 2020 Dietary Guidelines
- New “Sunshine” Database on Nutrition Scientists Includes Members of the Dietary Guidelines Committee
- Please Give to the Nutrition Coalition! Our End-of-Year Fundraising Appeal
NEW FOOD INDUSTRY GROUP REVIVES ENERGY BALANCE FOCUS; USDA SIGNS UP, DESPITE SIGNIFICANT DISPUTE ON THIS TOPIC
A new group called the Portion Balance Coalition (PBC) has been formed to promote the idea that the amount rather than the type of food a person eats is the most crucial factor for good health. Swiss food-industry giant Nestle launched the group earlier this year, with the intention of emphasizing the importance of portion control. This is an apparent revival of Coke’s dismantled “energy balance” group which aimed to convince Americans that all calories are the same: i.e., those in sugar are no different than those in salmon. A growing number of scientists disagree with this idea; they counter that the type of calories is what matters most, along with the presence of needed nutrients. Public health groups have questionably allied themselves with such food giants as Unilever and KraftHeinz in the PBC, yet participation by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) deserves particular scrutiny, given its weighty responsibility to deliver the nation's dietary policy free of industry influence and also not to take sides in scientific debates. Read our blog on the PBC, including its decision to focus on "Millennials with children...as our initial primary target."
THE EPIDEMIC WITHOUT END? HALF OF AMERICANS WILL HAVE OBESITY BY 2030
According to a new study, fully half of Americans will have obesity by 2030 if current trends continue. Official advice—to eat more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, and seeds while minimizing butter, regular meat, and dairy have self-evidently failed to protect American health. The USDA and its defenders claim that not enough Americans follow USDA advice, but the government’s food availability/consumption data clearly contradict this claim. Clinical trial results to show that following the USDA Dietary Guidelines will prevent disease are also lacking. A separate report, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has equally grim news, stating that rates of pre-diabetes have risen to 1 in 5 adolescents and 1 in 4 adults. This condition, which almost inevitably progresses to a diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes, provides more evidence that current official solutions to chronic disease are not delivering positive results.
NEW "SUNSHINE" DATABASE ON NUTRITION SCIENTISTS' CONFLICTS OF INTEREST
Image courtesy of ProPublica
The news organization ProPublica launched a “Dollars for Profs” database documenting conflicts of interests among university scientists who’ve received federal funds. Several members of the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee were among those studied. These include Purdue University’s Richard Mattes, who has consulted for or received research support from at least nine companies and trade groups in the past five years, such as Procter & Gamble, and PepsiCo Global R&D, Japanese food and biotechnology company Ajinomoto, the California Walnut Commission, the Almond Board of California, Welch Foods, and the Alliance for Potato Research and Education. Mattes also served on the scientific boards of ConAgra and the Grain Foods Foundation, and he has consulted for ConAgra and life-science clinical-research company Biofortis. Meanwhile, another Purdue professor on the Guidelines committee, Reagan Bailey, has received funding from the dietary supplement company Pharmavite and has served as a scientific adviser and government liaison for the ILSI North America Committee on Fortification, a food industry-backed nonprofit whose members include the Coca-Cola Co., General Mills, the Kellogg Company, Nestle USA and PepsiCo Inc.
The Nutrition Coalition has been working to create a comprehensive data base of such conflicts of all members of the Guidelines committee, to be published in 2020. Our brief overview, when the committee was first appointed, can be found here—in which we note that the Committee includes a virtual employee of Nestle USA.
NEW GROUP LAUNCHES TO ENSURE THAT A "TRUE" LOW-CARB DIET IS INCLUDED IN THE 2020 DIETARY GUIDELINES
A new group called the Low-Carb Action Network (L-CAN), a coalition of doctors, academics, and average Americans with personal success stories using low-carb diets, has launched to urge U.S. nutrition leaders to include a true low-carb diet as part of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. L-CAN members point to a large and rapidly growing body of strong scientific research showing that carbohydrate restriction is a safe and effective strategy for the prevention and even reversal of chronic, diet-related conditions such as pre-diabetes/Type 2 diabetes, overweight/obesity, and high blood pressure, along with a broad array of other cardiovascular risk factors. L-CAN members are concerned that the USDA, in its current scientific reviews, is using an inaccurate definition of the diet that is not up-to-date with current science and will lead to misleading, untrustworthy results. Specifically, the USDA is defining “low-carb” as 45 percent of total calories or less, when leaders in the field agree this number should be 25 percent.
END-OF-YEAR APPEAL: PLEASE GIVE TO THE NUTRITION COALITION!
We are the only group anywhere in the world working to instill scientific rigor in nutrition guidelines. Please consider a donation to this important cause. If the Dietary Guidelines remain the same, children will continue to get donuts for breakfast at school, hospital cardiac patients will continue to be served white toast with margarine, and our military will continue to be told pasta is “fighting food” while meat “slows you down” in mess halls. All this unhealthy food and inaccurate advice are driven by the Guidelines—which clearly have to change to reflect the science. We wrote an end-of-year giving appeal that you can read--or head straight to our donation page. We hope you will contribute to this important work. Thank you!
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The Nutrition Coalition is a nonprofit educational organization working to strengthen national nutrition policy so that it is founded upon a comprehensive body of conclusive science, and where that science is absent, to encourage additional research. We accept no money from any interested industry.