I recently had the privilege to moderate this year’s Henry C. Gardiner Global Food Systems Conference at Kansas State University (partially sponsored by Farm Journal). The speakers included 1. Mike Johanns, 2. Dr. Craig Gunderson, and 3. Dr. Peer Ederer, all of whom masterfully covered a multitude of important topics.
I’ll address some of the key items in coming columns, but let’s begin with an observation from Dr. Ederer. Part of his comments addressed the scientific literature on the health implications of eating meat; he noted that some scientists are “willfully manipulating the discourse.” My mind immediately turned to a column I did many years ago highlighting an episode of Malcolm Gladwell’s Revisionist History podcast. (You can also find some coverage in the Scientific American here.)
Gladwell’s story featured Ivan Frantz, MD. His life’s work revolved around replacing dietary animal fat with vegetable fats. He subsequently established the National Diet-Heart Study (in cooperation with the National Institute of Health) to better understand the relationship between diet, cholesterol and heart disease.
Gladwell describes the findings (published in 1968) this way: “…patients on vegetable oil did end up with lower cholesterol than the people who ate food cooked with animal fats. That part worked according to expectation.”
But...as Gladwell explains it, “…the vegetable oil people didn’t live longer – which made no sense. They were eating the kind of diet everyone believed should help you live longer.”
Now we turn to Christopher Ramsden, MD (National Institute of Health). His research interests motivated him to hunt down Frantz’s raw data. He subsequently contacts Ivan’s son – Dr. Robert Frantz of the Mayo Clinic – who ultimately finds the data stored in his father’s basement (hence, Gladwell’s podcast title, “The Basement Tapes”).
Ramsden’s analysis of Frantz’s data (published in the British Medical Journal here) reinforces the initial findings: vegetable oil effectively reduces cholesterol. However, Ramsden also accounted for the missing influence on life expectancy that was previously missing. That is, ingesting more vegetable oil negated any benefit derived from lowered cholesterol.
As it turns out, persons eating only vegetable oil had a mean linoleic acid intake of about 17 g/day. The group without added vegetable oils consumed only 6 g/day. The authors note that, “While the biochemical and clinical consequences of high intakes [of linoleic acid] are incompletely understood, there is a possibility for unintended harm.”
In other words, the obsession with lowering cholesterol has unintended consequences. Ramsden explains it like this:
…replacement of saturated fat in the diet with linoleic acid effectively lowers serum cholesterol but does not support the hypothesis that this translates to a lower risk of death from coronary heart disease or all causes. Findings from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment add to growing evidence that incomplete publication has contributed to overestimation of the benefits of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid. (Emphasis mine).
Gladwell reinforces the importance of the conclusion – because it’s contrary to conventional thinking in the scientific community: “Remember, this is a super-cautious scientist speaking – in the final paragraphs of a scientific, peer-reviewed research paper that was probably rewritten and rewritten ten times to tone it down as much as possible.”
That is, Ramsden challenged the conventional wisdom. Two years before Ramsden published his results, Nina Teicholz (The Big Fat Surprise) explained how difficult that is to do: “This [meat is bad] hypothesis became accepted as truth before it was properly tested. Public health bureaucracies adopted and enshrined this unproven dogma.”
What’s the take away here? It’s three-fold. First, Nina Teicholz echoes Peer Ederer’s sentiment that when it comes to meat/health connection some scientists really are “willfully manipulating the discourse.” That’s an unfortunate reality. But second, there’s hope – because there still remain scientists like Dr. Ramsden who are committed to chasing down the facts and studying the data. And third, beef can indeed be an integral part of a healthy diet!
Nevil Speer is an independent consultant based in Bowling Green, KY. The views and opinions expressed herein do not reflect, nor are associated with in any manner, any client or business relationship. He can be reached at nevil.speer@turkeytrack.biz.
