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Challenging nutritional dogma

It’s been a week when a couple of the cherished dogmas of nutritional advice have come crashing down. Long may it continue.

First, there was the much publicised study, based on data from half a million people, which showed that eating eggs did not significantly raise the risk of heart disease or stroke – even if you ate an egg a day.

Then there was the much smaller, but still significant, analysis that found that substituting ‘healthy’ omega-6 polyunsaturated fats for ‘unhealthy’ saturated fats actually raised the risk of death from all causes including heart disease.

Amazingly, this is the only randomised controlled human study to date to look at the impact of our increasing intake of omega-6 fatty acids, found in safflower, sunflower, corn, soya and cottonseed oils and so widely used in convenience and processed foods.

Further analysis of other comparable data showed no evidence of benefit from our high omega-6 intake, and suggested a possible increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

Rational nutritionists have been saying this for years and indeed other data have pointed to similar conclusions.

But in challenging the prevailing dogma all too often you end up being called a ‘quack’  or cyber-stalked by internet trolls – sad people who have nothing better to do than try to undermine whatever doesn’t fit their personal narrow-minded mission.

These days too, the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority is increasingly being misused as a proxy health watchdog by these so called sceptics. It makes too many magazines and newspapers timidly err on the side of conservatism. And being misused to support the increasingly marginal agenda of a disgruntled few must be very tiresome for the ASA.

Nutrition science isn’t clear-cut. It’s littered with studies that claim ‘associations’ and ‘links’, rather than certainties. Often all we can do is look at what the weight of the evidence says and be prepared to make allowances for individual differences.

Something that affects men might not affect women. What benefits a Caucasian might not work for other ethnicities. Children have different needs and responses to health interventions than adults. Pregnant women are different from non-pregnant women.

If you really want to be healthy look beyond government targets and ‘official’ health advice which often lags behind the research. Be aware, also, that where official dogma arises it’s often because commercial interests are involved.

Health policy is deeply influenced by the food lobby. Even the WHO takes money from Coca-Cola and Nestle and in the UK the Responsibility Deal debacle has allowed fast-food firms, soda makers and supermarkets to directly shape public health policy.

McDonald’s and Coca-Cola in charge of our health? What could go wrong? Almost everything, and it’s hardly surprising that both the Children’s Food Campaign and the consumer magazine Which? have documented multiple failures.

The basic rules of healthy eating – eat real food; prioritise organic, seasonal and local; reduce portion sizes; eat a variety of foods and fats; reduce your meat consumption; cut down on sugar – are little more than common sense.

They’re sometimes hard to remember when faced with the glitzy hard-sell of the latest patented food product, or the promise of some sort of cholesterol-free nirvana, but the rewards will be better health for longer.

Pat Thomas, Editor