Adrienne wrote: Dr G said that last year there were 24,000 nutrition articles published on nutrition and that if you are still saying the same thing you said 10 years ago then you are not keeping up in the field. Do you agree with that?
As you may now, I do not agree with that perspective and I have discussed this and the reasons why in this forum on many occasions.
Here is one..
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 22&t=28191I have also discussed how science really works and fortunately, it does not work as implied by the above comment. Science is a very slow moving process that inches forward making minor shifts along the way. Studies may shift it ever so slightly but it rarely makes a sudden major shift.
http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/E ... ews!!.htmlMost studies will never be replicated or be of any value...
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 30#p421908"A number of empirical studies show that 80-90% of the claims coming from supposedly scientific studies in major journals fail to replicate."
And in this discussion, "The Information Myth: Is More (Always) Better," I point out 4 key points to understand comments like the one you mention above
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 8&p=461664To me, understanding the 4 key points, is way more important than reading 10's of1000's of articles.
In addition, I have an article I am working on called The Greatest Health Discoveries in the Last 50 Years, which is when most nutrition science has happened. By this, I mean revolutionary information that actually made us change the way we think about nutrition and/or changed the way we eat. A major paradigm shift in thinking. I surveyed dozens of doctors, dietitians, public health officials, scientists, researchers from many fields and perspective and scoured the medical literature for any published responses. At best, I get about 10 items, several of which I will show are not really that big of a deal, are anything new or resulted in any actual changes.
Included in the survey was most all of the WFPB doctors and the most responses I got from any one of them was about 5 things. That is it. Think about it, in 50 years, 5-10 great discoveries that changed the way we think about food and eating and/or caused us to make a major shift. That is about 1 every 5-10 years. So, how many happened this year? This month? This week? Today?
Let us not forget, Pritikin is still publishing results every year using the same original reversal program. Same with Dr Ornish. Same with Dr McDougall, The CHIP program, TrueNorth, Dr Esselstyn, etc... These program not only still work, they are some of the best and most effective programs out there and over all the years, they have made only minor changes in their programs.
http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/E ... _Pt_1.htmlAs I pointed out here, even in the 2012 year end video, the best data used to show how dietary interventions can prevent, treat and reverse CVD, Cancer, Diabetes, etc, was the data from Pritikin, Ornish, McDougall, etc.
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 0r#p310350The same here just 6 months ago...
http://nutritionfacts.org/video/kempner ... nto-shape/Adrienne wrote: And of all those articles how many do you think are actually relevant?
Let's put that number (24K) to the test assuming it is accurate and about the same each year. That would mean about 12k in 6 months.
I went and analyzed all the videos to date for the first 6 months of 2015. There were 68 videos produced in the first 6 months of 2015. Of those 68 videos, I was only able to find 2 references to studies published in 2015. 2/12,000 is .0167%
Apparently, another forum member has recently found a similar issue.
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 19#p502203Perhaps there are more that have been covered in blogs, articles and social media posts, which I did not look through. However, many of the video topics are not only nothing new, many have been well covered already by Dr McDougall, Pritikin, Dr Ornish, Dr Barnard, me, etc, etc.
Perhaps it is exposing a new and different audience to the info but from my understanding, the biggest exposure by far has been from the FOK movie which remains the biggest influence. And that is based on a single film.
Last week, I posted a review of the studies I have covered in this forum in the first 6 months of 2015, which totaled 49.
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 22&t=48778Now, I admit that I do not post every single one I think is relevant or important, just the most relevant and important ones. For arguments sake, lets double my 49 to 98, though my guess is, it is not double but more like an additional 10-15 studies. Using the 98, 98/12000 is .8%.
This number is actually more inline with my thoughts/comments on the issue, especially in regard to the way research is done today, that about 1% of the stuff published is of any true value. As I have said in the forum, you can go away for 6 months to a year (or more) and not pay attention to any of the "breaking" health news and not miss a thing. In fact, of the 49 studies I posted, not one, was breaking health news. Not one. Not one required a major change in thinking or how you eat. They just added to the body of evidence on many of the topics I am already discussing here.
The only possible exception is 2 areas that have been developing over the last few years. The first is the negative effect of excessive exercise and that the "runners heart" that was once thought to be benign, may actually be harmful. We don't know for sure yet but to me it seems like the evidence is building in that direction. The second, is the impact of Intermittent Fasting. While this has been practiced by certain health philosophies and certain religions for quite some time, it is now being formally studied for its health impact. Again, we don't know for sure yet and there seems to be some advantage in the preliminary studies but there is so much more to learn about it. What will be important is whether or not any long term benefit equals or exceeds the benefit already conferred by this WOE, how healthy a diet must be adhered to on the non fasting days, etc etc.
On a final note, to put this in even better perspective, lets say there was one new study each day that was worth discussing and was featured in a blog, articles, video, etc. That would be 365 studies. 365/24K is 1.5%. That is it. 1.5% and I think we can all agree that there just is not even 1 new study a day worth discussing.
So, not only to I disagree, I don't recommend that perspective at all.
Adrienne wrote: And on the subject research, Dr G mentioned that he was in fact enrolled to a joint MD/PhD program but then decided to switch to a straight MD program. In your opinion, how important is formal training in conducting/interpreting studies?
As you know from my discussion on nutrition education, I think formal training, education and proper licensing and credentialing are all very important. While some things can be learned on ones own by some, formal training has many advantages.
While I do not have a PhD, I did choose to go the thesis route for my MS which means I got training in research. I also made a point of taking classes in statistics and epidemiology. During my nutrition education, I also started a Journal Club and had the top nutrition researcher at my school mentor us so we could learn from him about studies, how to read them, interpret them, etc.
Adrienne wrote: Do you think that a joint MD/ PhD physician scientist degree would have offered Dr Greger an advantage, and therefore improved the quality of his videos and articles?
I don't know.
Adrienne wrote: When AJ asked if he missed working with patients he said yes, but that he doesn’t “have the luxury to do that anymore when our society is so sick." Right before that he said that when he was seeing patients perhaps he could reach dozens of people a day, when he was speaking he could reach thousands, but now he can use the same research, skills and background to spread this lifesaving info to as many people as possible.
I assumed he was referring to the work he does with Nutrition Facts (reading studies, making videos) since, after all, people are not “so sick” with bird flu, mad cow and other infectious d diseases related to his work at the humane society, but with obesity, heart disease, diabetes etc…
So basically it came across like he thinks he can help more people making three five-minute videos a week than seeing a handful of patients a day. Do you agree with that? Do you think the world would be better off if suddenly you, Dr McD, Craig McD, Dr Ess, Dr Davis, Dr Ostfeld etc suddenly decided to stop seeing patients b/c, technically, you all could “reach” more people sitting at home making with You Tube videos? Of course this would require the “luxury” of being able to do that, which Dr Greger seems to have. (It must take A LOT of time to read through and carefully evaluate thousands of studies.)
I touch on this issue here...
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 22&t=47205As I have discussed in this forum, I think we need two things for this movement to grow, a health supporting environment and more experts in the trenches seeing patients and working with them on a day-to-day basis.
From my perspective, there is more than enough information, and has been for quite some time, to make a strong case for this WOE (and for those interested, a move towards an animal free diet). I don't think we need more of that nor will more make the case much better. We already have "proof of concept" beyond the shadow of a doubt. If you do this and if you stick to it, it works and works very well in virtually all cases. What we need more of, is not more studies showing why this is great or effective (unless it is expanding its effectiveness to new areas), but more work in how to create sustainable behavior change.
Therefore, I take my hat off to the likes of Dr Craig McDougall, Dr Ostfeld, Dr Lederman, Dr Seale, etc and the others like them who are working every day to implement these programs in their every day practice. There are dozens of other doctors just like them who have no interest in fame, fortune, bestselling books, tv shows, etc and that is why you don’t know their names. However, they are working every day in the trenches and changing lives. There are a 1/2 dozen doctors who work with Pritikin who are in their 80's and work p/t seeing patients every week and have been doing it for decades and personally impacted the lives of 10's of 1000's of people. I bet no one, outside of the work they do, know their names.
On the other hand, remember the thread I linked above, The Information Myth: Is More (Always) Better
There is a point where we have too much information coming out at us and instead of it being a help, it is a hinderance. In fact, one of the problems I see today is just this, people are so confused and mostly because there is too much information, too much good and too much bad, but to most people it is just too much information.
I see it in the patients who come to the 10-Day. The issue is not only they have too much bad information, they also have too much (what may be called) "good" information. They heard, "only eat red cabbage and not white," or "this bean is better than that bean," or "this fruit is the best fruit", or "this nut vs that nut," or, "only cook vegetables this way, etc etc" and it only confuses them and gets in their way and makes the process of triage, which is the one of the keys to success, harder, not easier.
http://www.jeffnovick.com/RD/Articles/E ... _Ugly.htmlhttp://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7875In a way, it is just another form of distracted health...
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 1&#p457049Remember, 5 Basic Simple Healthy Lifestyle Behaviors will eliminate 80-90% of CVD, Diabetes, Stroke, 40-70% of cancer and 65%-75% of the premature death from chronic disease. Nothing else comes even close. Yet, less than 5% of Americans follow these 5 Lifestyle Habits and around 1% (at most) follow the dietary ones (which are very basic).
Adrienne wrote: Have you ever met, worked with, or heard of anyone who credits Nutrition Facts with profoundly changing their lives for the better, similar to Star McDougaller stories or FOK success stories?
From my observations and interactions, not in the same way we do. To me, it seems like the message is more to get people to be a vegan, than to help them address their personal health issues, as specific guidance for that is not given or put in perspective, nor can it be. So, I have met people who have become vegan because of it, but, for the details on the how to apply it to their health and personal situation, they have then had to go to Dr McDougall, Dr Esselstyn, Dr Barnard, etc. Now, we have all made video's as support for the work we do, but the work we do with patients/clients comes first.
Adrienne wrote: I find it ironic that he switched from the MD/PhD program to the straight MD program b/c he realized that the world needed conversion of the research for clinical practice, yet he himself isn’t even doing that anymore. I can't help but think that if Dr G was seeing patients he could make a HUGE difference in the lives of a small - yet significant - number of people. As you often point out, implementing a WFPB diet can be so difficult for many. This type of one on one, doctor/patient interaction is not something that can be replaced with short You Tube clips. On top of that if he was seeing patients he could introduce the whole concept of a WFPB diet from the beginning and explain the benefits, which are still unknown to too many people.I could be wrong but I get the feeling that most loyal NF viewers are already converted and have already reaped the benefits, to a certain degree anyway.
I agree and it is the route I chose.
At one of the ASW weekends, one of the questions asked of H. Gilbert Welch, MD, after his talk, was, "What if we just got everyone to eat this way?" He responded saying that is not what it will take to make the change, nor where a doctor earned his real stripes (and I am paraphrasing). He said, what it will take and what makes a doctor a great doctor is not when they have recommended to a patient to make the needed lifestyle changes or seen a patient who wants to do this.
What really matters is when, in 3 months, when the patient comes back struggling with all the challenges facing them in implementing the changes, and the doctor then takes the time to really listen to them and to work with them on an individual ongoing basis over time, so they can make and implement the needed changes. That is what makes the difference.
Adrienne wrote: Also, he mentioned that in his new book he discusses the benefits of turmeric. Do you know of any benefits to adding a little turmeric for people already eating plant-based? Is this one of those instances of unique positioning/market differentiation?
I discuss this issue here, which I think is a very important one, and that is the relevance and application of studies on the general population to those on a low fat, WFPB, low/no SOS diet.
https://www.drmcdougall.com/forums/view ... 22&t=43681Adrienne wrote: Finally I wish there would have been some discussion regarding the enormous benefits AJ has experienced by eliminating all nuts, limiting seeds, eating a lot of white potatoes, and essentially adhering to guidelines that he once called "ego-based," "outdated" and "not the best science-based advice." It’s too bad that she didn’t call him out on that!
In Health
Jeff