Nutrition "Science," Bought And Paid For -- And It's Far From Alone
Yes, we've got candymakers shaping nutrition...uh, "science."
Candice Choi writes for the AP:
NEW YORK (AP) -- It was a startling scientific finding: Children who eat candy tend to weigh less than those who don't.Less startling was how it came about. The paper, it turns out, was funded by a trade association representing the makers of Butterfingers, Hershey and Skittles. And its findings were touted by the group even though one of its authors didn't seem to think much of it.
"We're hoping they can do something with it -- it's thin and clearly padded," a professor of nutrition at Louisiana State University wrote to her co-author in early 2011, with an abstract for the paper attached.
The paper nevertheless served the interests of the candy industry -- and that's not unusual. The comment was found in thousands of pages of emails obtained by The Associated Press through records requests with public universities as part of an investigation into how food companies influence thinking about healthy eating.
...It's not surprising that companies would pay for research likely to show the benefits of their products. But critics say the worry is that they're hijacking science for marketing purposes, and that they cherry-pick or hype findings.
The thinner-children-ate-candy research is an example. It was drawn from a government database of surveys that asks people to recall what they ate in the past 24 hours. The data "may not reflect usual intake" and "cause and effect associations cannot be drawn," the candy paper authors wrote in a section about the study's limitations.
The candy association's press release did not mention that and declared, "New study shows children and adolescents who eat candy are less overweight or obese."
Actually, per my conversations with an epidemiologist, it isn't just the nutrition science that's dishonest. Medical device manufacturers and drug companies skew studies and hide data that don't conform to the message they want to send.
How'd you like to have a hip implanted -- a bum one -- thanks to a drug and device company, Johnson & Johnson, hiding the design flaw in the thing?
Here's a quote from a Barry Meier NYT article:
The device's ball and cup components, both of which were made of metal, rubbed together as a patient moved, producing shards of metallic debris that destroyed tissue and bone.The DePuy Orthopaedics division of Johnson & Johnson estimated in an internal document in 2011 that the device would fail within five years in 40 percent of patients. Traditional artificial hips, which are made of metal and plastic, typically last 15 years or more before replacement.
DePuy officials have insisted that they acted properly in handling the device, including waiting until 2010 to recall it. However, internal company documents show that company officials were warned years before by their own consultants that the device was so problematic they would not use it in their patients.
Back to the candy "study":
For the paper on candy-eating children, a disclosure says the funders had no role in the "design, analysis or writing of this manuscript." But emails obtained from LSU show the National Confectioners Association made a number of suggestions."You'll note I took most but not (all) their comments," Fulgoni wrote to O'Neil about the paper in 2010.
"I have finally waded through the comments from NCA. Attached is my attempt to edit based on their feedback," he wrote about a similar paper on candy consumption among adults.
And then there's this (and FYI, "publication bias" is a form of cherrypicking -- withholding studies that don't have the desired effect):
Many researchers fear that the body of scientific literature is being distorted by withheld results. On its registry for clinical trials, the National Institutes of Health explains that reporting results reduces publication bias and facilitates systemic reviews."That's part of science. You publish the result you get. You don't just publish the results you want," said Deborah Zarin, who oversees the registry at NIH.
Please tell that to others in our government, Deborah, like US Dietary Guidelines chair Barbara Millen, who led way to having author/journalist Nina Teicholz being kicked off National Food Policy Conference panel -- as reported by Peter Heimlich at The Sidebar. Oh, and that's author/journalist Teicholz who's critical of the unscientifically based US Dietary Guidelines.
Here's Teicholz on my science-based podcast, on why butter, meat, and eggs are the foundation of a healthy diet.
Candy link via @BigFatSurprise
So why are you so enamored of vaccination studies? It's the one honest area of medical research?
Snoopy at June 3, 2016 4:29 AM
This is like people saying, "evolutionary psychology is a shit field!" They do this because they have an agenda. It's just ignorant and silly to say that about an entire field; you look at individual studies and critique them.
Feel free to explain why there's been, say, p-hacking in a particular study or where there's been publication bias or drug company funding a study, and feel free to lay out how it's not just that one study that's flawed.
PS Got polio?
Amy Alkon at June 3, 2016 5:17 AM
How about Vani Hari, who warns people not to ingest chemicals and not to breathe on airplanes.
Conan the Grammarian at June 3, 2016 7:02 AM
IMO nutrition science, as it current exists, pretty much is a shit field. There are very few honest brokers; you have candy manufacturers on one side and outfits like the Center for Science in the Public Interest on the other, and they are both using half-baked studies with carefully chosen data points to push their respective agendas. A lot of people are fearful and confused about food and eating these days, and it's not hard to understand why -- there are no reliable information sources, and today's widely publicized health warnings and scares will be replaced by new ones tomorrow. Last week caffeine was bad for you. Then the day before yesterday it was good. Yesterday it was bad; today it's good, and it will change again tomorrow and the next day and the next. And every single time, the media and the government will make you out to be a pariah if you don't slavishly follow the latest advice.
"The device's ball and cup components, both of which were made of metal, rubbed together as a patient moved, producing shards of metallic debris that destroyed tissue and bone. "
This is what I hate about journalists -- they have no expertise in any field, so they are unable to comprehend the details of the stories they report. So they go for the easy conclusion, the one that will make the emotional impact that they want with the reader. There is nothing wrong with a metal-on-metal interface per se -- plenty of machine bearing surfaces, which take a lot more stress than a hip joint does, are metal on metal. The devil is in the details: what alloys? What kind of finish? How was it tempered? And so forth. The report tells us nothing about what the problem is, which makes it impossible to tell if the concern is valid, or if it's just another media attempt to induce panic.
Cousin Dave at June 3, 2016 7:23 AM
"This is like people saying, "evolutionary psychology is a shit field!"
Evolutionary psychology is a shift field, because the studies and research don't meet the definition of science. I.e. controlled observations with measurable outcomes. And repeatability by other independent researchers.
It fails the same tests as the nutritional studies. Cherry picked data, too many variables, and no way to establish causation.
In short it is guesswork about what makes people tick. And the variables about why, for example, some man finds some woman attractive, are too many to draw any usable conclusions or universal principles.
It just sounds "sciency" So people without the math skills to actually do and critique science, think there most be something to it.
Psychology in general fails most of the same criteria. There are some legitimate studies, like BF Skinners research, but when you start assuming you know what other people are thinking and what motivates them to do stuff, you are off into la la land. Might as well consult an astrologer.
Isab at June 3, 2016 8:29 AM
Evolutionary psychology is a shift field, because the studies and research don't meet the definition of science. I.e. controlled observations with measurable outcomes.
Again, you don't get to toss an entire field like this; it's simply immature.
Individual studies in any field can be criticized. Feel free to do that. I do it all the time -- I just don't use the ones that don't seem valid and reliable, etc.
Amy Alkon at June 3, 2016 9:20 AM
Individual studies in any field can be criticized. Feel free to do that. I do it all the time -- I just don't use the ones that don't seem valid and reliable, etc.
Amy Alkon at June 3, 2016 9:20 AM
Name an evolutionary psych study you think is legitimate science. I would be glad to point out specifically where it makes assumptions, that cannot be validated, and employs methodology that cannot be replicated or reaches results that are conjecture.
The entire subset of social *science* fails the most basic tests of real science.
So does most of the so called climate science.
There is a lot of politicized wishful thinking dressed up as scientific research. I'm not surprised most people can't tell the difference.
Journalism and the dumbing down of very complex concepts for publication along with the inability of most people to understand probabilities of error have contributed to this.
How reliably to you think a disinterested or interested observer can measure sexual attraction? I think poorly.
Scientific studies to be legitimate, need to pass two tests. First the methodology must be must be correct. Large enough sample, measurements, and math done correctly etc.
The second test, does it tell you anything meaningful or add to the knowledge base?
Let's take female waist to hip ratio. One of your pet subjects.
First you need a large sample of all ethnicities. Then you need to measure it correctly. After that you have to find a way to isolate that factor, and then screen out every other factor that might make a woman attractive, such as big boobs, nice teeth, healthy skin, shiny hair, pretty eyes, etc. you get the picture.
Then you need a large large sample of male heterosexual observers, again from all cultures, and ethnicities.
Then you need a large control group of observers who are looking at the same women without being able to see their waist hip ratio but are seeing the nice skin big boobs, white teeth etc.
So now, say you have found a slight preference for a certain waist hip ratio but not enough to state conclusely that it has any evolutionary effect on human reproduction.
So then maybe the fact that there is a slight preference in male observers doesn't tell you anything meaningful, because maybe, just maybe, women with larger hips relative to their waists are surviving childbirth in greater numbers, and therefore passing on that gene to their surviving offspring, and it has nothing to do with successful reproduction since a horny male will fuck whatever is available. We all know that.
Are you getting the picture yet?
Isab at June 3, 2016 10:39 AM
Individual studies in any field can be criticized. Feel free to do that. I do it all the time -- I just don't use the ones that don't seem valid and reliable, etc.
Amy Alkon at June 3, 2016 9:20 AM
Also, how, prey tell, without totally repeating the study, and examining the underlying data do you determine which ones *seem* valid and reliable?
*seem* is a term used by non scientists to try and excuse their inability or unwillingness to actually vet a study for scientific validity. Usually because it agrees with their preconceived notions.
The nutritionists have gotten away with this for years.
Isab at June 3, 2016 10:58 AM
Isab, if you want to see some climate research that's actually interesting and appears to be based on verifiable data, look up John Christy. He eschews ground-based observations for infrared satellites that cover the entire Earth. Executive summary: His data shows a flat trend since about 1998.
Cousin Dave at June 3, 2016 11:50 AM
Thanks for the timely posting, Amy! My kid was just asking why people keep saying grains are so healthy for us when they aren't.
After explaining about modern versus ancient grains, whole versus "white" grain products, and how the language around these things can be confusing (whole grain is more nutritious than white, but that doesn't mean it is healthy, for instance), we got to the "and science is kinda rigged" part.
Then I saw your post and was all, "See? This is what I was talking about!"
Perfect timing!
Shannon at June 3, 2016 3:44 PM
Here's an article showing that antidepressants don't work, despite the fact that they've all been proved to work in double-blind studies approved by the FDA:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4172306/
Snoopy at June 3, 2016 4:58 PM
Statins, again proven to work by double blind studies, and prescribed by the millions are harmful:
"There is a categorical lack of clinical evidence to support the use of statin therapy in primary prevention. Not only is there a dearth of evidence for primary cardiovascular protection, there is ample evidence to show that statins actually augment cardiovascular risk in women, patients with Diabetes Mellitus and in the young. Furthermore statins are associated with triple the risk of coronary artery and aortic artery calcification."
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=34065
Snoopy at June 3, 2016 5:00 PM
Doctors used to recommend cocaine:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CfssC8oUsAARLRU.jpg
Snoopy at June 3, 2016 5:02 PM
Oh wait... the cholesterol theory promoted for the last 40 years was wrong too:
http://www.uncommonwisdomdaily.com/government-finally-admits-it-was-wrong-about-cholesterol-20213
Snoopy at June 3, 2016 5:06 PM
> PS Got polio?
No, but my children are not vaccinated and since they've been born there has been both an outbreak of chicken pox and measles where I live. Virtually all the children who got ill had previously been vaccinated against these illnesses. My children were just fine, as were the children of other unvaccinated children.
Snoopy at June 3, 2016 5:18 PM
All the above medical errors, and many more such as tonsillectomies, that affected 10s of millions of people, show that often even scientists have no idea what they are doing most of the time. A little intellectual humility is in order.
Snoopy at June 3, 2016 5:22 PM
"Virtually all the children who got ill had previously been vaccinated against these illnesses."
Got a cite? Even a summary which includes the association between those who were not affected and those who were?
While we're at it, please note that credentials may establish your ability to present reasoning as sound, but they do not establish that you have done so.
I have not been vaccinated against influenza in decades. Obviously, that's complete proof that it's not necessary, huh?
Radwaste at June 4, 2016 4:57 PM
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