This comes to us from the Weston A. Price Foundation:
https://www.westonaprice.org/speak-out-against-bad-dietary-advice/
The federal Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) is expected to issue its draft report on May 11 – and they are getting it wrong again. These Guidelines have numerous major impacts on our food supply, not only influencing what many Americans eat, but also what foods are provided for schoolchildren, in hospitals and nursing homes, and through various publicly funded programs.
The Committee’s most recent comments indicate that they are still on the “saturated fat is bad” bandwagon. One member stated that they believe that it’s valid to say that “for every 1 percent reduction in saturated fat, there’s a 2 percent improvement in overall risk.” Multiple members stated that there is “no biological need for saturated fat.” There appears to be consensus on the committee to recommend that Americans get no more than 7% of their calories from saturated fats, and to take that number as low as possible. It seems the only barrier to the committee recommending the complete elimination of saturated fat from the diet is the fact that some plant foods include it. (Transcript at pages 43-46)
They are relying on flawed, outdated science – often funded by the sugar industry – and closing their eyes to numerous studies, both old and new, showing that we do need saturated fat in our diets, and that you cannot achieve true “nutrient density” without traditional animal foods.
The attitude towards saturated fats reflect underlying problems with the whole process. The DGAC process lacks transparency, does not reflect rigorous science, and has been criticized for “lacking rigor” by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
The Dietary Guidelines haven’t made Americans any healthier. We have an epidemic of chronic diseases that are diet related – but not in the way they keep claiming. As they keep pushing Americans towards low-fat diets, devoid of meat, eggs, and whole-fat dairy, the problems will just keep growing.
TAKE ACTION
The DGAC is ignoring the public input that contradicts their biases against saturated fat. So let’s go over their head, to Congress! Contact your U.S. Representative and your U.S. Senators, and urge them to put pressure on USDA, the agency in charge of the Committee, to reform the process.
You can look up your Senators at https://www.senate.gov and your Representative at https://www.house.gov
Below is a sample letter. You will have the greatest impact if you personalize it at the very beginning. Adding even just a couple of sentences makes a difference. Have you seen health benefits from NOT following the guidelines? Have you seen people, including children, with poor health on diets low in saturated fat?
SAMPLE LETTER
Dear Representative (or Senator) _____,
As a constituent, I urge you to call on USDA to reform the process for the 2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) so that it is trustworthy and reliable.
I need your help to ensure that the DGA actually support our country’s health. Currently, the DGA process lacks transparency and does not reflect rigorous science.
In particular, the DGA Committee’s proposed caps for saturated fats are not supported by sound science:
- The Committee has ignored a massive body of science showing that the longstanding caps on saturated fats are not supported by the science. This science includes large, government-funded studies on more than 75,000 people, on the subject of saturated fats and heart disease—demonstrating that saturated fats have no effect on cardiovascular or total mortality.
- The 2020 process is relying instead on reviews conducted in 2015 and 2010, which were deemed by the National Academies of Sciences to be “unsystematic” and therefore unreliable.
- The Committee acknowledged that the majority of studies it did use did not control for all the main confounders – which undermines any claim that the results can be used to show causation.
Please urge the USDA to do more than simply follow the status quo, which has led to ever-rising rates of obesity, Type 2 diabetes, and other chronic diseases. The National Academies of Sciences stated in a report, “To develop a trustworthy DGA, the process needs to be redesigned.”
We agree. We need evidence-based policy-dietary guidelines we can trust to start improving health in America.
Sincerely,
Name
[Town]
ADDITIONAL TALKING POINTS
There are many problems with the DGAC’s process:
Non-rigorous reviews of the evidence
- The guidelines process follows an unvalidated, unrecognized process for reviewing the science. The National Academies told the USDA that it should adopt a recognized, state-of-the-art review process, in order to be credible. Yet USDA rejected this advice. When it came to saturated fats, the Committee simply “built upon the 2015 committee’s review on saturated fat and cardiovascular disease outcomes in adults” (Transcript at p.27)
- Violating the most basic rules of science, the USDA review process does not prioritize stronger data (clinical trials, which show cause-and-effect) over weak data (observational data, which show associations only). No recognized science review system in the world treats science this way.
Lack of Transparency
- The National Academies strongly recommended that all members of the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee disclose all their conflicts of interest. Yet the USDA rejected this advice. On the committee is a Medical Director for Nestle, the former science director of Merck Pharmaceuticals, and others with multiple other serious conflicts of interest, but none of this information is disclosed.
Saturated Fats Caps Not Supported by the Science
- The DGA has ignored a massive body of science showing that the longstanding caps on saturated fats are not supported by the science. This science includes large, government-funded studies on more than 75,000 people, on the subject of saturated fats and heart disease—demonstrating that saturated fats have no effect on cardiovascular or total mortality.
- The 2020 process is relying instead on reviews conducted in 2015 and 2010, which were deemed by the National Academies of Sciences to be “unsystematic” and therefore unreliable.
- The committee acknowledged that the majority of studies it used did not control for all the main confounders – which further weakens any claim that the results can be used to show causation. (Transcript at p.31)
MORE INFORMATION
The Weston A. Price Foundation has been the leading source of trustworthy information on saturated fats for years, with numerous articles posted at https://www.westonaprice.org/know-your-fats/
The Nutrition Coalition has an excellent statement that includes a link to studies on saturated fats at: https://www.nutritioncoalition.us/saturated-fats-do-they-cause-heart-disease
The transcript quoted above is from the March 13th meeting of the DGAC, available online at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a4d5666bff20053c65b7ff2/t/5e73d1f7dca77767aa53472a/1584648696147/March+13%2C+2020+-+Morning+Session-+2020+Dietary+Guidelines+Advisory+Committee+Public+Meeting.pdf
The transcripts for all of the DGAC’s meetings are available at https://www.nutritioncoalition.us/2020-dietary-guidelines-info/committee-meetings
The National Academies’ reports are posted at https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/review-of-the-process-to-update-the-dietary-guidelines-for-americans
