by Dr. T. Colin Campbell, MD, PhD, Part 3
continued from Part 2: http://rawlife.org/detox/promotion-of-health.htm
My third case involves something fairly recent. It has to do with a
couple of committees that are responsible for setting national nutrition
policy. One of the committees is called the Dietary Guidelines
Committee; generally run by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, which has a
heavy bias toward livestock production.
That Committee, the Dietary Guidelines Committee is responsible for
establishing the food pyramid; information that is now well known to the
public. They basically, every five years, come out with a new updated
report and give their judgment to any new science that may reflect on
the kinds of foods that they could recommend that ought to be consumed.
There has been a lot of trouble incidentally with that report over
the years because there has been quite a lot of controversy associated
with it. It has been basically biased, I think it's fair to say, toward
the recommendation and emphasis given to animal-based foods as opposed
to plant-based foods. In no way has that report or that committee ever
really given voice to the idea that plant-based might be a really good
thing.
In any case, that's one committee. That's the committee I referred to
in the question at the beginning of this lecture about having to go to
court to expose who is associated with what. That committee and the more
recent report was comprised of 11 members and it turned out that of
those 11 members, after the court rendered its decision and forced them
to reveal their associations, six of those people, the majority, had
an association with the dairy industry and it generally wasn't known
to the public prior to that. I really find that very troublesome. And
the court also found that the chairman of the committee had accepted
personally more than the maximum amount of money (from the dairy
industry) that was allowed without in fact being exposed to the public.
So there were problems with the report and we had to go to court, so
to speak, not me, but an organization that took them to task to get that
kind of information. Incidentally, telling what associations we have
with the private sector as I mentioned before, was almost a sacred
thing to do on these reports. I always recall actually filling out these
conflicts of interest forms and being very careful how to do it. I was
always told it was very important for the public to know what
associations we might have.
All of a sudden, now we're involved in a situation on a very
important committee like that where we have to go to court to find out
what associations they may have and what did we learn? We learned that
the majority of people have a strong association with the dairy industry
that could benefit from the way the report was phrased. That's one
report that tells us what kinds of food we should be consuming. That
report in turn comes up with some of the recommendations in considerable
measure by considering the results of a second committee.
The second committee is the Food and Nutrition Board of the National
Academy of Sciences, and that committee at the Food and Nutrition Board,
specifically every five years, reviews again the scientific literature
and determines what net levels of nutrients we should be consuming.
They're the ones that have come up with the recommended daily allowance
recommendations, the RDAs, that are used extensively in food labeling
and food claims. RDAs have become a part of our society in many ways and
it's that committee that sets those limits.
As you might imagine, the numbers that are actually arrived at become
very important in terms of indicating what is permissible to saying
what is not permissible to say, and to say nothing of the guidelines
that they give for major programs. And by guidelines, I might add, these
two committees, the USDA and the Food Nutrition Board on the other
hand, are working closely with each other, in tandem essentially.
Those two committees basically provide the fundamental information
that is used to structure questions concerning the school lunch program
or the hospital or prison food programs or the women and infants and
children's WIC) programs, as well as to structure the kinds of claims
that can be made on food labels. So, I can't overemphasize the results
that these two committees come up with every five years, because they
really do set the standards for a broad range of activities in the food
sector in our country. They also come up with the kind of information
that becomes popularly known and widely publicized.
In any case, let's go back to the most recent Food and Nutrition
Board's (FNB) report of 2002.
The chairman of the FNB at that time was the same man who was the
chairman of the FNB who had been sued and then had to reveal his
associations with the dairy industry, along with his colleagues. His
committee was getting 49% (almost half!) of their money from the dairy
industry and this was certainly something I had never heard of
before. It was something new and it was a lot of money.
It allowed the committee to go forward and so here we have the
chairman, who has a major hand in picking the members of the committee,
also overseeing the money coming in from the dairy industry to put this
report together. Now maybe one can argue that that's all OK, as long as
its open and we know exactly what the evidence really is. But I think
for a lot of people already, there are a lot of flags going up as to
what might be coming out of that report.
Now let's look and see what came out of the report, what really did
they find? It turns out that during the time that that report was doing
its business and coming up with the recommendations of how much protein
should be consumed and how much fat should be consumed and
carbohydrates, particularly the refined carbohydrates, when they were
coming up with the report to come up with these numbers, at the same
time the World Health Organization (WHO) was doing a similar study and
were coming up also with recommendations of how much of the nutrients
were considered to be in the healthy range.
FNB Recommendations
The Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) came up with recommendations for
fat, protein and refined carbohydrates; those are the three I want to
consider with you. The dietary fat recommendation was such that (this
was incidentally a conclusion on the first page of their executive
summary of the news release, I mean it was very prominent when it was
announced) they actually raised the bar on the amount of fat that would
be allowed in the diet from 30%, which previously had been established
by us and many others at the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) , to
35%, and using the statement that this was consistent with minimizing
the risk for chronic diseases. This exact. I'm quoting verbatim from the
summary.
They said that "35% fat was now permissible to be consumed in diets
in order to minimize the risks for chronic disease," that of course
being cancer, heart disease, diabetes and the like. They also suggested
that children can consume up to 40% fat. Well, this is just a major
departure from what had previously been done and all the information we
had been getting during the last 20-40 years, they're suddenly coming
along and telling us it's OK, we can consume diets even higher in fat
than had been recommended. That was troublesome enough.
But then, let's go to the question concerning refined
carbohydrates. Now, I've already talked in a previous lecture about
refined carbohydrates being the bad guys as far as carbs are concerned
and refined carbohydrates specifically being the sugars like glucose and
sucrose and the refined parts of the carbohydrates like white starch
that's been extracted from the plants (like white flour and white rice).
In any case, the refined carbohydrates is the one that's been
taking the rap in recent years as many people know and of course
appropriately so because refined carbohydrates get absorbed more
rapidly, they get associated with diabetes and obesity. We know
these things.
And higher levels of lipids (fats), such as triglycerides. So, we
know that refined carbohydrates are not the kinds of things to include
in our diet to any significant extent.
Well, how much was being suggested that was consistent with
minimizing chronic disease, and that's again using their criteria for
minimizing chronic disease? They came to the conclusion that up to 25%
of our calories could be from refined carbohydrates and they explicitly
said that what they were referring to was candies, pastries and things
like that!
I think that anyone with any common sense would find that really
quite surprising to say that 25% of our calories can be in the form of
candies and pastries! Especially in the case of pastries also containing
considerable amounts of lipid (fat). In any case, it was being widely
reported that they had this figure of 25% as the upper limit for refined
carbohydrates.
At the same time, the World Health Organization (WHO) was doing their
report. They were working through these numbers: same data, same
information and coming up with their own recommendations. Word got out
that they were going to set a limit of 10%. Not 25% but 10%. Well,
that's really when it hit the fan because the sugar industry in
this country, who had been funding this Food and Nutrition Board
report in part (specifically M&M/Mars was involved in providing
this funding, the soft drink industry who was providing the funding) and
so the sugar industry then contacted the WHO Committee as well as the
WHO itself and advised them that they better change this 10% figure to
the 25% figure that was consistent with what the U.S. had just done.
A friend of mine was chair of that committee and I know some of the
details of this information. I've seen the correspondence that went on. The
sugar industry basically threatened the Committee at the WHO,
saying, "If you don't change this to be consistent with the U.S. level
of 25%, we have powerful friends in the White House and in the
Department of Health, and more particularly we have powerful friends in
Congress. And we're gong to go to these people and get the United States
to withhold funding from the United Nations and specifically to
withhold funding from the WHO if they were going to stick by this 25%
figure."
It's a very sordid story. On the one hand, we can raise questions of
why was it set at 25% in the first place. Well, the fact that
M&M/Mars and the soft drink industry and others were funding that
report, I don't think it's just an accidental association: I think the
information speaks for itself.
The final recommendation that they made, which I think was more
startling than anything I can possibly imagine; they suggested that we
could go as high as 35% of calories in the form of protein in order to
minimize chronic disease risk.
Now, in the lectures that I've been giving here at Cornell, most of
this information regarding the effects of protein on these diseases tend
to occur in the 10-20% protein range. In other words; as we increase
protein intake from 10-11% or so up to 22-23%, that's when we see
evidence suggesting increases in cancer risks, increase in cholesterol
concentration, increase in loss of calcium from the bones, increases of
this and that and everything else. In other words, we're already
consuming enough protein.
I should point out that the range of protein intake that we now have
become accustomed to in this country is already in excess of what is
needed.
In prior years, we always said that 10% protein was enough.
That was the RDA. But, because of this worship of protein that has
existed in this society for so long, most people are consuming diets
somewhere between 11% and 22% whee all we need is 10%, so already we're
consuming in excess.
The average protein intake in this country is about 17% and 70% of
that 17% is animal-based. So, we're consuming protein rich diets now
that one could argue has a lot to do with determining our risk of cancer
and heart disease and many of these other diseases that I've mentioned.
All of a sudden the NB comes along and says, "Hey, we now have
evidence that we can go all the way up to 35% protein, where almost
nobody goes, and that's associated with minimized chronic disease risk."
Somebody might ask, "Were there any companies involved in funding
this report that had an financial interest in the protein question?"
Well, one of the most powerful dairy conglomerates in the world was
helping to do this report and much of our protein intake in the United
States comes from dairy foods. In fact, one can argue that dairy food
consumption has been justified to a considerable extent not only because
of the presence of calcium. [Dr. Flora: Remember, you have learned in
our classes that bones are not made from calcium containing foods, but
from potassium, magnesium and silica containing foods.]
Concluding Remarks on Government and Health
Here we have a Food and Nutrition Board report sort of coming right
out in our face telling us that they are going to drastically change the
recommendations that we're previously had all for the purpose of
reducing cancer and heart disease risk and the risk of all these other
diseases that I've reviewed in this course. And, we also find that the
people involved in this are associated with the industry (dairy, cola,
sugar, candy, etc.) It's not terribly well known who's associated with
whom and how much association they really have. We find that the
industry supports this report and I find the entire process appalling.
[Dr. Flora: And illegal, immoral, and is killing us.]
Now I've told you three cases. I could give you another couple of
dozen of examples of this sort of thing. I personally started to get
tired of seeing this type of thing go on. But it's led me to some views
on why the public doesn't understand the relationship between diet
and health, and I say it's for two reasons. One is, in a sense, we
might argue, as a professional. The other is not quite professional,
let's say it's unprofessional.
On the professional side, first let's consider this point of view: I
would argue that the vast amount of our research ha been conducted with
an enormous focus and undue focus on the activities of individual
chemicals. Whether these chemicals be nutrients or whether they be
chemicals to stop reactions from chemical carcinogens or whatever. We
put so much focus on the effects of individual nutrients out of context.
So, as a result, we've lost sight of what whole foods can really do;
whole foods that do work in large measure because of their presence of
nutrients. I mean, it's the nutrients that are part of thee foods that
make it work. But to take those nutrients out of context, whether it's
being used as drugs or whether they are being used as chemo preventive
agents is one of the popular terms, or whether they're being used at
elevated levels of intake.
All of that stuff is going on and that's been the nature of science,
and I find that my criticism of this approach to our thinking
unfortunately almost goes to the heart of what science is really all
about and I don't have time to get into that question particularly from
the historical point of view, but rest assured that I really do believe
very strongly that we put so much emphasis on single nutrient effects,
what they do that are supposedly good things or whether they're doing
things to block bad things that otherwise would occur.
I should tell you that it's not surprising to realize that this is
the case if we know something about our economic system. In it, our free
market system, discoveries of new chemicals, new products, new devices
will go someplace if they have value. What kind of value am I talking
about? I'm talking about the economic value that's adherent in these
studies.
So, if we make a discovery about a certain nutrient doing this or a
chemical doing that, it will reach the marketplace. It can make money,
it does have value, but only insofar as we're able to protect that
intellectual property, and we can do that. Our patent laws, trademark
laws, our copyright laws are such that that's what it's all about. If we
can use those laws to protect an intellectual property at least for a
sufficient period of time to go to the marketplace, we can make money.
That's how information from nutrition literature and the biological
information that comes from N.I.H. is really valued. It's valued, maybe
not obviously at the dense top with the individual researchers doing
this work, they're too concerned really with this most of the time.
The vast majority of people are honorable, hardworking, dedicated
people doing the work and doing very good work, I should add.
But, the problem exposes itself now that I'm talking about the larger
context of what becomes of this information that the scientists
disclose. The information that becomes of value in an economic sense
is information that reaches the public. Once we come to terms with
understanding what that's all about and come to terms with the kind of
claims that can be made, and I've been involved in that game and I've
seen a lot of the evolution of regulations concerning the health claims,
it becomes very easy to see why there's so much confusion.
Most of the information that reaches the public is either coming
directly from health claims, most of the public aren't aware of that, or
it's coming from institutions and agencies that are doing the
bidding in many ways for the industry (dairy, sugar, meat, etc.)
simply because they are populated by people who are setting the
guidelines and the like that are used.
So that's, let's say, is the professional side.
The unprofessional side of this problem is illustrated by the FNB,
illustrated by the Dietary Guidelines, illustrated by my colleagues at
Johns Hopkins University where they had other agendas and other
interests because of their personal compensation.
Obviously, I consider that to be unprofessional. But, nonetheless,
rest assured that that happens. Fortunately, I think it only happens in a
minority of people in the scientific community because I still hold in
very high regard the vast number of people working in science. Very fine
people, dong their work.
It's just the very small handful of people who get into powerful
positions, who have associations with the food and drug industries that
then in turn are compensated through honorary and other means or perhaps
get money for doing their research. These people end up in very
powerful positions, often times in the government, in agencies
particularly the policy arena, and really mess things up.
So these are my thoughts in terms of the confusion we have to be
concerned about and the questions that were raised in the beginning. I
think if you go back and look at those questions, do a little analysis
of the history and go interview some people and look at reports and I
think you will find what I in fact have found over these years...
[Emphasis added]
Peace and Love Be With You,
Flora 
Big Pharma 'Selling' Tactics Dangerous 
The
holidays are over, your resolutions are already falling by the wayside,
and you're starting to settle back into the same rut you were in last
year. Sigh...
Dr.
Flora van Orden III has a PhD in nutrition, was Dr. Ann Wigmore's
personal assistant for 22+ years, traveled the world with Dr. Ann, and
has been a Wigmore Practitioner for 40 years.
