2020 US Dietary Guidelines

[Jinzang]

The US is in the process of revising its dietary guidelines for 2020, something it does every five years. The US Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee has released its report (pdf file), part of the process before the guidelines are finalized. The executive summary includes the following recommendations:

"The Committee found consistent evidence that certain dietary pattern components are associated with beneficial outcomes for all-cause mortality, CVD, overweight and obesity, type 2 diabetes, bone health, cancer (breast, colorectal, and lung), and neurocognitive health. Common characteristics of dietary patterns associated with positive health outcomes include higher intake of vegetables, fruits, legumes, whole grains, low- or non-fat dairy, lean meat and poultry, seafood, nuts, and unsaturated vegetable oils and low consumption of red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and drinks, and refined grains. In addition, the Committee found that negative (detrimental) health outcomes were Scientific Report of the 2020 Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee associated with dietary patterns characterized by higher intake of red and processed meats, sugar-sweetened foods and beverages, and refined grains."

"Collectively, these observations have major implications for recommending dietary patterns to the U.S. population. The healthy patterns the Committee examined in its review comprised various combinations of foods and were identified with many different names (e.g., DASH, Mediterranean). This suggests that a healthy diet that promotes optimum growth and development while minimizing risk factors for chronic diseases can be created and tailored to suit cost considerations and a wide variety of personal and cultural preferences."

 

[fifty]

835 pages? Nice.

 

[Paul M]

What's the fascination with these low fat, High carb diets? The West started becoming obese when we steered away from fats and started consuming far too many carbs.

 

[Jason Sypolt]

What's the fascination with these low fat, High carb diets? The West started becoming obese when we steered away from fats and started consuming far too many carbs.

More than likely it is simple lobbying by industry food groups. “Want to get re-elected? There sure is a lot of corn grown in your state. It would be a shame for all of those jobs to be lost on your watch”.

That’s why. The sugar industry did the same thing decades ago to make fats the villain responsible for CVD. They still do it today.

 

[Jinzang]

None of the new dietary guidelines are suprising. All are within the mainstream of nutritional opinion over the last five years. There is evidence backing up all of the guidelines. But since the evidence has not yet reached the general public, partly due to "industry food groups," they seem controversial to the general public. Here is one reason why consumption of red meat is discouraged, according to the evidence, not vegan propaganda:

"Red meat has faced critics and abuse from the medical world for many years now, and the dangers of consuming large quantities of red meet seem only to increase with every new research study.

"One of the major reasons why red meat is not recommended by physicians all around the world is with regards to the high amounts of sialic acid present in such meats.

"Sialic acid has been associated with a myriad of undesirable conditions ranging from increased aging symptoms to cardiovascular ill-health, inflammatory diseases, and sub-par metabolism, among others.

"In one of the recent studies on the safety of meat, a non-human molecule identified as Neu5Gc common in red meet became the new center of interest.

"Repetitive consumption of red meat is associated with increasingly severe inflammation. Since Neu5Gc is not naturally occurring in the human cell, its presence is immediately recognized as foreign, prompting the body to produce more antibodies to fight against the molecule.

"Through persistent intake of red meat, more Neu5Gc is delivered into the cells and the immune system produces even more antibodies as a counteraction. The end result is chronic inflammation which is often associated with tumor development and cancer progression. In fact, it is in these two main ways that Neu5Gc affects the body."