Aug 2 in Nutrition
Nutrition Science Sucks
Ever wonder why so many people disagree about what 'heathy' means or why there are so many different 'diets' that work or why everyone in the world keeps getting fatter and sicker?
Well, it's very simple. The answer is:
nutrition science sucks.
It's not reliable at all.
Most optimistic interpretation of why it's trash is that since the vast majority of nutrition science is derived from epidemiological studies (self-reporting by large population about details that are not measured or tracked over long periods of time), the absolute best anyone can do is make very poorly concluded correlations, which people of any ilk or ideology can come behind and interpret however they see fit.
Most cynical interpretation of why it's trash is that there are lots of institutions with enormous political, religious, and financial incentives to keep the population in the dark about nutrition.
Due to a couple key pieces of evidence, such as the Journal of the American Medical Association posting a retraction of the key science that blames heart disease and high blood pressure on saturated fat due to the discovery that large sugar companies had paid the researchers off to shift the blame, I am inclined to believe the latter of the two explanations.
I don't want to be a conspiracist, but it is very clear to me that a lot of money is made off of people who are addicted to certain foods, and who are chronically sick and dependent on pharmacological intervention to get by... not to mention whatever political or religious motivations other groups may have. I won't even discuss those.
So what do we do?
Well, there are four ways we can test something and we kinda need to rely on all four working together before we can be very sure. Test any nutritional idea by these four criteria:
- Is there quality peer-reviewed research supporting this idea? When I say quality, I mean, comes from a harder, more reliable family of sciences, like archaeology, biochemistry, or compared anatomy & physiology, also, if you have the capacity to do so, check the research for conflicts of interest, sound reasoning, and proper scientific rigor, take it to an expert you trust if necessary
- Do you know anybody that experienced a benefit from implementing this idea? How many? Anecdote by itself is not great research, but in plural, anecdote is data, and data is always useful.
- Do you understand mechanistically WHY this idea would be true? This is gonna depend on your own research and understanding, but if something doesn't make sense to you, that can be a big, red, flag.
- Most importantly, does it work when you apply it personally? Now this isn't perfect, because there can always be confounding variables and biological variability at play, but if the entire world tells you that something is false, and when you test it, it's true... the entire world could be wrong. It wouldn't be the first time.
When it comes to nutrition, it's a safe bet that most people misunderstand it as much as everybody else. Doctors and Dieticians get fatter and sicker every day too.
I've got some ideas... let's test them for ourselves and see what happens.
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Nutrition Science Sucks