Lots of years have passed since I first began doing research to answer the question "What is the best way to eat?" It is still fun to watch the heated debates between many of the dueling experts with somewhat limited wisdom, and the arguments between those who approach the topic in their reactive brains and those who use their reflective minds.
Despite the nutrition debates, I always recommend that each person find out what lifestyle fits best, and to keep in mind that one size does NOT fit all. For more on those recommendations, I invite you to read my post The diet argy-bargies: Raw, natural, vegan, vegetarian, locavore, omnivore? What is a person to eat?
For those of you who wonder why one expert can definitively claim one thing and another just as confidently claims the opposite, they are typically basing their "knowledge" on either anecdotal evidence ("it works for me and all my friends so it will work for you, too") or scientific research. Lest you be too quick to trust the research, I urge you to read this article in The Atlantic.
Excerpt from "Lies, Damned Lies, and Medical Science":
The humility and graciousness seem to serve [John Ioannidis] well in getting across a message that is not easy to digest or, for that matter, believe: that even highly regarded researchers at prestigious institutions sometimes churn out attention-grabbing findings rather than findings likely to be right. But Ioannidis points out that obviously questionable findings cram the pages of top medical journals, not to mention the morning headlines. Consider, he says, the endless stream of results from nutritional studies in which researchers follow thousands of people for some number of years, tracking what they eat and what supplements they take, and how their health changes over the course of the study. “Then the researchers start asking, ‘What did vitamin E do? What did vitamin C or D or A do? What changed with calorie intake, or protein or fat intake? What happened to cholesterol levels? Who got what type of cancer?’” he says. “They run everything through the mill, one at a time, and they start finding associations, and eventually conclude that vitamin X lowers the risk of cancer Y, or this food helps with the risk of that disease.” In a single week this fall, Google’s news page offered these headlines: “More Omega-3 Fats Didn’t Aid Heart Patients”; “Fruits, Vegetables Cut Cancer Risk for Smokers”; “Soy May Ease Sleep Problems in Older Women”; and dozens of similar stories.
When a five-year study of 10,000 people finds that those who take more vitamin X are less likely to get cancer Y, you’d think you have pretty good reason to take more vitamin X, and physicians routinely pass these recommendations on to patients. But these studies often sharply conflict with one another. Studies have gone back and forth on the cancer-preventing powers of vitamins A, D, and E; on the heart-health benefits of eating fat and carbs; and even on the question of whether being overweight is more likely to extend or shorten your life. How should we choose among these dueling, high-profile nutritional findings? Ioannidis suggests a simple approach: ignore them all.
Please click to read the whole article. It is worth your time.
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