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OPINION: A Bit of Advice to Chew on: Take Those Food Studies With a Grain of Salt

Posted on: Tuesday, 14 March 2006, 09:00 CST

By Laura Ofobike, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

Mar. 14--Live long enough, and the sages' advice for moderation in all things begins to make a great deal of sense. With due respect to armies of researchers, perhaps nowhere is this more pertinent than in deciding what to eat.

Most of us have learned to manage our daily lives relying on the advice of some kind of expert or another. Oh, it may not be that you check out the horoscope daily or consult the neighborhood psychic to decide where you better not go or what colors to wear to be in perfect sync with the universe. You can be sure, though, that in many of the decisions that affect general health and well-being, our choices are heavily influenced by experts.

You choose margarine, for example, instead of butter? Pass up the egg yolks? Soy milk for whole milk? Tofu for beef? Swear by ginseng and ginkgo and buy calcium supplements by the armful? Chances are, the choices are based on expert studies and encouragement filtering down from researchers and health practitioners. In the age of knowledge, we live and die by the studies of experts.

We'd like to believe that when we make decisions about healthy living, about what we eat, which dietary supplements or medications to take, what physical activities to pursue, those choices are guided by the best available scientific evidence.

For the most part they are. Grease-laden foods and starchy fare are great on the taste buds, but the best available scientific evidence still warns that a steady diet of bacon, eggs and hash browns, say, is a ticket to obesity and a host of ailments, and neither is couch-lounging, beer in hand, acceptable aerobics.

All the same, there is a problem. It may be a mere perception, but it seems to me that it is becoming a real challenge to give much credence to the flow of studies regarding what would keep the average person reasonably fit and healthy.

The period of certainty between "authoritative" and "debunked" information appears to grow shorter by the year. Begin incorporating findings from one study into your diet (egg white is safer; load up on calcium), for instance, and along comes another study knocking the legs out from underneath your carefully reconstructed lifestyle.

To be sure, the point of scientific research is to put accepted "truth" to the test, constantly challenging orthodoxies, expanding the boundaries of knowledge and refining understanding. The corrective process is necessary to give some balance and provide perspective. Imagine the contrary: We would still be dissing all cholesterol, sweeping everything from red meats and egg yolk to nuts and chocolate under the do-not-eat blanket, with no distinction between good fat and bad fat. Chocolate (at least the dark type) has been reinstated as good for something. The yolk is making a comeback.

Still, the average consumer is bombarded by a stream of dueling studies and frequently conflicting recommendations. Which to take seriously? Which to ignore? It doesn't take long for skepticism to overtake the credibility of both the studies and the sources.

In the past month alone, for example, the Women's Health Initiative has issued two reports that seem to upend what's become standard advice.

It has been drilled into the heads of women of child-bearing age and older that they need calcium and vitamin D supplements to protect against colorectal cancer and brittle bones and fractures in their old age.

Not entirely, said one report. Healthy post-menopausal women may see some improvement in hip bone density and fractures, but not in other bone fractures, or a reduction in colorectal cancer, either. Besides, the report said, all that calcium raised the risk of kidney stones. We are more than our hip bones and don't care for kidney stones, so what now?

Maybe a low-fat diet would live up to the promise of reducing the risk of heart attacks, strokes, breast and colon cancers in women? No, said the other report. Women on low-fat diets showed no reduced risk from those who ate whatever they pleased.

So much for the rice cakes.

Hold on yet. Two studies this week are reporting that in heart patients, the B vitamins didn't lower the risk of strokes and heart attacks, contrary to earlier thinking.

It's safe to guess there will be other studies, sooner rather than later, refuting these findings. With each round, I can't help but think: Eating whatever we please -- in moderation, of course -- couldn't be such a bad policy, really.

Ofobike is the Beacon Journal chief editorial writer. She can be reached at 330-996-3513 or by e-mail at lofobike@thebeaconjournal.com

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Akron Beacon Journal, Ohio

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Source: Akron Beacon Journal (Akron, Ohio)

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