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A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

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Re: A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

#61

Post by cageface »

ryanworl wrote: post #59
cageface wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Numerous direct intervention studies have shown the clear causal link between dietary saturated fat and blood cholesterol levels. You can obscure this fact by playing games with population meta studies because individual baseline levels vary a lot and are genetically determined. https://nutritionfacts.org/video/the-saturated-fat-studies-s... Anecdotally, I and several people I know have dramatically dropped our blood…

Why are you concerned with blood cholesterol as opposed to e.g. calcium scoring or actual inflammation markers you can measure almost as easily as a lipid panel? One does not spontaneously develop atherosclerosis from elevated blood cholesterol. That just doesn’t make sense from a metabolic perspective.

Elevated LDL is very highly correlated with heart disease. Studies that show that people born with genetically very low cholesterol levels are practically immune to heart disease reinforce this. The mechanism for this is well understood.

Re: A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

#62

Post by hrygolis »

galangalalgol wrote: post #38
cageface wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. Most studies support the consensus findings of nutrition studies for the last several decades. Unfortunately the meat and dairy industries have managed to muddy the waters enough to get most people to just throw up their hands and eat what they want. Processed foods are bad for you. Refined carbs and sugars are bad for you. Saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for you. A diet centered around whole fruits…

Saturated fat has been vindicated by a majority of modern studies while polyunsaturated has been crucified. Selling us industrial vegetable oils as food was clever. That doesn't mean we should eat a aide of bacon a day, but avoiding whole unprocessed foods containing saturated fats for any reason other than calorie count is flawed. And dietary cholesterol does not correlate with ldl, nor does ldl strongly correlate w…

The saturated/polyunsaturated issue to me points to the complexity of the science, not necessarily to anything nefarious.

Consider the response of both to heat. There's a good explanation for why polyunsaturated fats are more healthy when raw, but also good reasons to think that they're less healthy when heated to cooking temperature. But studies, and people, tend to ignore the distinction as if there's no chemical changes in response to 400F heat.

Add to this the fact that, for example, "sunflower oil" can vary wildly in it's actual lipid structure because of genetic variation, things get even more complicated.

Sure, there's manipulation in nutrition science, but it's not that different from other biomedical sciences. A lot of the confusion is that, but a lot of it is just random sampling variation, and problems people have with interpreting meta-analyses rather than individual studies; but some of it too is the actual inherent complexity of the topic.

Re: A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

#63

Post by cbr »

>patients are known to be highly inconsistent when reporting their own alcohol consumption. Answers patients provide depend on many factors, including the doctor-patient relationship. And patients’ spouses often disagree with their partners’ assessment of their drinking. The MACH15 trial had some sophistication built in to it, including the use of random smartphone-based check-ins for patients. But while some evidence suggests that smartphone-based self-reporting on alcohol consumption often contradicts patients hindsight reports, MACH15 had no ability to tease out which patients would adhere to the smartphone check-ins, and which were providing accurate accounts of their consumption. In essence, the NIH was making a $100 million gamble that volunteers would portray their alcohol consumption accurately.

This doesn't seem like a problem with the study design to me. You're effectively assessing the effect of telling people to drink "zero" vs "moderate" alcohol as opposed to the the effect of actually drinking those quantities, but since one major use for a study like this is to figure out what doctors should be telling people this still seems valuable.

Re: A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

#64

Post by sfifs »

swombat wrote: post #37
cageface wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize until I saw this DW documentary that Canada supplies a lot of the world's lentils: https://www.dw.com/en/lentils-food-for-the-future/av-4370243... Luckily lentils are one of the healthiest things you can eat.

Says who? I bet if we do a proper study we will find out the truth: that every kind of food eventually leads to death. Of course, that's what the Fasting industry wants you to think...

Fasting doesn't make anyone money and is against desires of most people. So unlikely there's going to be any significant industry push even though it's one of the few non surgical options proven to reverse type two diabetes.

Re: A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

#65

Post by Spooky23 »

cbr wrote: post #63

>patients are known to be highly inconsistent when reporting their own alcohol consumption. Answers patients provide depend on many factors, including the doctor-patient relationship. And patients’ spouses often disagree with their partners’ assessment of their drinking. The MACH15 trial had some sophistication built in to it, including the use of random smartphone-based check-ins for patients. But while some evidenc…

There’s too much judgement in the standards. If you admit to very moderate social alcohol consumption, you’ll get tagged as an abuser. Risky move these days.

Re: A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

#66

Post by wild_preference »

jamklda wrote: post #43
cageface wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't realize until I saw this DW documentary that Canada supplies a lot of the world's lentils: https://www.dw.com/en/lentils-food-for-the-future/av-4370243... Luckily lentils are one of the healthiest things you can eat.

Lot's of people suffer from legume/lentils allergy, it's anything but healthy for them.

What’s up with this internet argument style where people think that pointing out an obvious exception is a valid retort?

Are you seriously suggesting that they needed to provide a disclaimer about allergies to their general statement about lentils being healthy?

Can you tell me how you would modify the statement “exercise is healthy” to capture all exceptions as well?

Re: A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

#67

Post by zrobotics »

sfifs wrote: post #64
swombat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Says who? I bet if we do a proper study we will find out the truth: that every kind of food eventually leads to death. Of course, that's what the Fasting industry wants you to think...

Fasting doesn't make anyone money and is against desires of most people. So unlikely there's going to be any significant industry push even though it's one of the few non surgical options proven to reverse type two diabetes.

To be fair though, if one fasts long enough it is guaranteed to eliminate all known diseases...

Side effects are slightly unpleasant though.

Re: A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

#69

Post by bad_user »

cageface wrote: post #61
ryanworl wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you concerned with blood cholesterol as opposed to e.g. calcium scoring or actual inflammation markers you can measure almost as easily as a lipid panel? One does not spontaneously develop atherosclerosis from elevated blood cholesterol. That just doesn’t make sense from a metabolic perspective.

Elevated LDL is very highly correlated with heart disease. Studies that show that people born with genetically very low cholesterol levels are practically immune to heart disease reinforce this. The mechanism for this is well understood.

There are many studies confirming no link between high LDL and heart disease.

It’s a myth.

Re: A Major Industry-Funded Alcohol Study Was Compromised

#70

Post by jamklda »

wild_preference wrote: post #66
jamklda wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lot's of people suffer from legume/lentils allergy, it's anything but healthy for them.

What’s up with this internet argument style where people think that pointing out an obvious exception is a valid retort? Are you seriously suggesting that they needed to provide a disclaimer about allergies to their general statement about lentils being healthy? Can you tell me how you would modify the statement “exercise is healthy” to capture all exceptions as well?

> What’s up with this internet argument style where people think that pointing out an obvious exception is a valid retort?

Because it's not so obvious exception as you think it is, in fact it's the exact opposite, it's a very common type of allergy (Mediterranean, middle east, asia) and usually overlooked by many, that's why.

> Are you seriously suggesting that they needed to provide a disclaimer about allergies to their general statement about lentils being healthy?

Anti-nutrients (beside the allergies) in lentils/legumes is a real issue, so the "lentils being healthy" statement is highly debatable.

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