The first Dietary Goals for the United States (DGUS) were released in 1977 to not a lot of fanfare.  At that time, the great unwashed masses hadn’t really heard much about the word cholesterol, a substance the DGUS recommended that we should limit to 300 mg per day.  Doctors didn’t routinely screen for it, and if they did, they didn’t pay much attention to it.  In fact, at that time – as I recall, anyway – the upper limit of normal for total cholesterol was 240 mg/dl.  I was in medical school back then, and I don’t really remember any emphasis on cholesterol or blood lipids.  I think we had one lecture on it in biochemistry, given by a nebbish little professor we called Mighty Manford (his first name was Manford), who labored away in the obscurity of the biochemistry department. It’s hard to believe in today’s world of lipophobia that as little as 30 years ago, no one much cared about cholesterol.

One of the major players in bringing cholesterol to the public’s awareness was Time magazine. Its piece on cholesterol in the March 26, 1984 issue was a devastating hit piece on both dietary cholesterol and dietary fat.  Both – the article explained – were a main driving force behind the development of heart disease.

Reading this article today, it’s amazing how it drips with misinformation.  At the time, however, most people – physicians included – accepted it as gospel.  Sadly, even today, many physicians who should know better believe in and act in accordance to the bountiful misinformation contained in this piece.

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I so often come across such breathtaking nutritional ignorance foisted off as legitimate information that I’m left feeling like the girl in this photo. I wrote about this woeful ignorance on the part of the medical community in my last post.  Now it’s time to take a look at the misinformation many registered dietitians dispense as a matter of course.

I have subscriptions to many magazines, most of which I save up to read while I’m on airplanes so I can trash them after I read them and lighten my load as I travel.  A couple of days ago I was on a flight from Newark to Seattle casually paging through a golf magazine when I came upon one of these well-meaning (I’m sure) but totally incorrect little bits of advice.  The only saving grace is that I’m sure the vast majority of people reading this magazine will totally ignore this advice and go on doing whatever it is they’ve been doing.  But the advice is so abominably wrong that it cries out for exposure.

I’m sure the magazine needed a little space filled up so the editor charged one of the magazine’s staff writers come up with a fluff piece to fit the space required.  The editor may have specified that the piece be nutritional in content because the add right below it is for Planter’s NUT-rition line of nut products “specifically designed to give you the taste you want and the energy you need.”

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In 1976 the classic film Network starred Peter Finch as crazed anchorman Howard Beale who launched into his now-famous rant “I’m mad as hell…” on air and galvanized movie goers everywhere.  Even though Howard Beale is fictional, I often share his sentiments.

I got a call yesterday from an acquaintance who wanted to get together and talk to me “face to face.”  I’ve played golf and had a few drinks with this guy over the last couple of years, but that’s about it.  I agreed to meet him at a local coffee shop.

When we had our coffees in front of us – I, a full-strength, scalding hot Americano; he, a non-fat, decaf, double shot latte, just in case you’re wondering – we made small talk for a few minutes then he cut to the chase.  A look of despair came over him, and he confided to me that he was a type II diabetic and was in real trouble.  His doctor had been monitoring his HgbA1c levels for a couple of years, and lately they had been inexorably on the rise to the point at which drastic action was required.  What drastic action?  His doctor told him he was going to have to start insulin injections.

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..man, proud man,
Dress’d in a little brief authority,
Most ignorant of what he’s most assur’d…

From Measure for Measure by Wm Shakespeare

The web has been alive with commentary the past few weeks since Denise Minger lobbed her first cannonball of a critique across the bow of The China Study, the vessel T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. rode to fame and bestsellerdom.  Seems like everyone is now jumping into the fray and gunning for poor Dr. Campbell, who early on in the fracas made a few halfhearted attempts to fight back but has now fled the scene.  I’ve been laying low watching it all play out, and so now figured it’s about time I add my two cents worth to the debate. But first a little history.

I met Dr. Campbell about ten years ago (five or so years before the publication of the popular book The China Study) when we both spoke at the same conference.  He was a nice enough man who spoke about the work he and his team had done in China gathering the data published in the massive 894 page monograph Diet, Life-style and Mortality in China (pictured above left).  As Dr. Campbell presented his data ‘demonstrating’ the superiority of a plant-based diet and demonizing protein of animal origin, I didn’t think much about it because the data was all in the form of observational studies, which, as all readers of this blog should know by now, despite often showing correlation don’t prove causation.  My lecture, which followed Dr. Campbell’s, was, as you might imagine, a lecture of a different sort.  Then we both sat on a panel after our talks and fielded questions.  And were both cordial to one another.

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My last blog post reviewed a book by Dr. Michael Holick, one of the world’s experts on vitamin D, who recommends sensible sun exposure to experience the benefits of adequate vitamin D.  In that post I touched on the idiotic extremes the dermatology mainstream have adopted to discourage people from spending time in the sun.

It’s worse than I thought.

Not long after posting, I came across a McClatchy column in our local paper pushing the perspective of most dermatologists, a perspective that’s so unbelievable that it almost reaches comedic proportions. (Our local paper requires paid registration, so I’ve linked here to a paper that doesn’t.) The piece serves to show in spades the way dermatologists think (if that’s what you call it), and lets us know why their advice should be taken with a huge grain of salt.

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