"Industry spends a lot of money trying to produce studies that make their products look as healthy as possible, so that they can assert health claims to help sales."
HealthyMe2010 wrote:
This is a cheap shot from Jeff. Which nut manufacturer does he claim paid for these studies?
I'm not sure why you would question industry funding of nut studies.
Here are some nut studies and their funding sources, most are from the place the nut industry spends a lot of their money, Loma Linda.
The first three were the work primarily of Kris-Etherton, whose work is funded by the nut industry, according to an article about nuts in the CSPI Magazine (Center for Science in the Public Interest)
http://www.cspinet.org/nah/11_05/nuts.pdf Her work "is funded all or in part by the Nut Industry." (you can also google “Kris-Etherton” and “fish” and find many studies she's done showing you should be eating fish as well as walnuts, according to Nurses' Health data):
The role of tree nuts and peanuts in the prevention of coronary heart disease: multiple potential mechanisms
Kris-Etherton, P.M., F.B. Hu, E. Ros, J. Sabaté, 2008. The role of tree nuts and peanuts in the prevention of coronary heart disease: multiple potential mechanisms. J Nutr. 138, 1746S-1751.
The effects of nuts on coronary heart disease risk
Kris-Etherton, P.M., G. Zhao, A.E. Binkoski, S.M. Coval, T.D. Etherton, 2001. The effects of nuts on coronary heart disease risk. Nutr Rev. 59:103.
Nuts and their bioactive constituents: effects on serum lipids and other factors that affect disease risk
Kris-Etherton, P.M., S. Yu-Poth, J. Sabaté, H.E. Ratcliffe, G. Zhao, T.D. Etherton, 1999. Nuts and their bioactive constituents: effects on serum lipids and other factors that affect disease risk. Am J Clin Nutr. 70 (suppl.):504S-11S.
Here is one where lead researcher, Gary Foster, is an adviser to the Almond Board of California:A randomized trial of the effects of an almond-enriched, hypocaloric diet in the treatment of obesity. Foster GD, Shantz KL, Vander Veur SS, Oliver TL, Lent MR, Virus A, Szapary PO, Rader DJ, Zemel BS, Gilden-Tsai A. Am J Clin Nutr. 2012 Jun 27.
This study is lead by Sabate, paid advisor for Pistachio Health Board – I believe this study also received nut industry funding:British Journal of Nutrition (2006), 96, Suppl. 2, S79–S86 Nuts, body weight and insulin resistance. Sujatha Rajaram* and Joan Sabate´ Department of Nutrition, School of Public Health, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA 92350, USA J Am Coll Nutr. 2002 Jun;21(3):275-83.
Here's one funded by Funded by the almond industry and lead by Almond Board Adviser Fraser and Pistachio Board Adviser Sabate:
Effect on body weight of a free 76 Kilojoule (320 calorie) daily supplement of almonds for six months.
Fraser GE, Bennett HW, Jaceldo KB, Sabaté J.
Center for Health Research, School of Public Health, Loma Linda University, California 92350, USA.
[email protected]Note that these are all short term studies of up to only 18 months. The almond industry can certainly fund mult-year studies, as you would expect. But the problem is that almond eaters in these studies tend to gain around 5 pounds in 18 months, compared to the control group, even the calorie-controlled studies. So doing a 5 year study would probably backfire by showing everyone gaining 10 to 20 pounds during the period, versus the non-nut crowd, and that would be the end of the "nuts are super foods" mantra.
Review and analysis of 25 intervention levels, funded by nut industry, as are the authors:Nut Consumption and Blood Lipid Levels A Pooled Analysis of 25 Intervention Trials FREE
Joan Sabaté, MD, DrPH; Keiji Oda, MA, MPH; Emilio Ros, MD, PhD
Arch Intern Med. 2010;170(9):821-827
If you click on this one at http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article ... eid=415912
And click on “author affiliations,” you will read this:Financial Disclosure: Drs Sabaté and Ros have received research funding from the California Walnut Commission, the Almond Board of California, the National Peanut Board, and the International Tree Nut Council; they are also unpaid members of the Scientific Advisory Council of the California Walnut Commission. Dr Sabaté received an honorarium as a member of the Pistachio Scientific Advisory Board.
Here is more info about Dr. Sabate:
http://www.pistachiohealth.com/consumer ... C3%A9-joanAnd a page under construction for him (the “about” page of the site)
http://www.originalhealthnut.org/ohn/in ... an-sabate/
on an industry-sponsored website of the California Walnut Commission. He receives money to promote a variety of nuts. Any conflicts? Yes, and as I said they are disclosed with the studies, and with a note that the funders did not influence the study designs or outcomes – of course! That was done by their (often) paid advisers, who rely on the nut industry to fund their work. No funds for a study, these Loma Linda researchers would have to find other sources for income. Not to be crass, but just realistic.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. The nut industry, like the dairy industry and many others, funds studies in hope they will promote sales.
I also want to make another point about the studies that HealthyMe2010 introduced in an earlier post.
I think a couple of them were already taken apart in the article on vegsource and shown to be very low quality, in terms of what they may mean to people already on a healthy plant-based diet.
Regarding the studies based on the Nurse's Health Study and Iowa Women's Health Study. I have looked and they are merely theoretical estimates about the effects of one food on the impact of disease in these pools of women. This is one of the weakest kinds of study. If a group of healthy people eat less meat, exercise more, don't smoke, eat more vegetables and nuts, is it the nuts that caused their health benefits?
Now, if you wish to base your diet info on this level of research, then it follows directly that you should be adding eggs, olive oil and fish to your McDougall, Fuhrman or Esselstyn diet. Why? Because the same theoretical estimates have been drawn from these same data that show reductions in disease with these foods.
You can go to the Nurse's Study website and take your pick:
http://www.channing.harvard.edu/nhs/?page_id=197You will see that you should be eating the Mediterranean Diet, according to the Nurses' Health Study. What are you doing on the McDougall discussion forum! You should know that the Nurses' Health Study has shown a significant reduction in CHD through these foods.
Wait, is a low-fat plant-based diet better? I personally think so. Are adding fish and nuts to my diet going to reduce my chance of a heart attack, because the Nurses' Health Study suggests it will? I believe my risk of CHD is already plenty low, because I eat a very clean diet, and all my numbers, at age 65, are better than anyone I know including people half my age. I eat nuts because I like them, not because I believe I must in order to take my risk even lower. I have no foods in my diet that promote heart disease that I could substitute for the nuts, if I were trying to do that. Only people in the Nurses' Study who eat junky processed carbs and meat have foods to substitute.
Here's data from Nurses' Health study saying fish, poultry and low-fat dairy instead of meat, lower mortality:
We estimated that substitutions of 1 serving per day of other foods (including fish, poultry, nuts, legumes, low-fat dairy, and whole grains) for 1 serving per day of red meat were associated with a 7% to 19% lower mortality risk.http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/article ... id=1134845Here's another from Nurses' Study, fish reduces heart disease:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11939867Here's the Nurses' study telling that lowering fat doesn't matter to heart disease or cancer, only switching from saturated to unsaturated matters:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionso ... s/low-fat/Really? How about if you lose all animal foods, not just go “low fat animal” but plant-based and lower fat? Would I be healthier? The Nurses' Study is completely silent on that question. The Adventist Study can give us a bit more information, because it looks like the vegans live longer than the vegetarians who live longer than the nonvegetarians. It must be the amount of nuts those Adventist vegans are eating! Right?
Nurses study and eggs:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionso ... ull-story/In studies of more than 80,000 female nurses, Harvard researchers found that consuming about an egg a day was not associated with higher risk of heart disease (too few women in the study were eating more than an egg a day to evaluate the effects of higher egg intakes). (35,36) One reason for the lack of association is that eggs are a good source of many nutrients that may counterbalance a slight increase in risk of heart disease.So to conclude, there are lots and lots of studies showing that eggs, fish, chicken, oils – and nuts – are all healthy and reduce risk of diseases or death, according to these questionnaire-based studies. But that surely is not the end of the story for anyone who has arrived here at the McDougall website.
I was going to give some information about the C grade for nutritional claims that FDA gave for research on all nuts except walnuts, but as I see someone on this string has communicated with Jeff Novick and he may weigh in here, I will defer to his vastly superior qualifications.
Last edited by Mark Simon on Thu Aug 02, 2012 4:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.