2019 March Board Book

When it was introduced nationwide in 1980, the low-fat portion of the low-fat/high- carbohydrate diet model had three pillars: limits on dietary cholesterol; saturated fat; and total fat. These pillars were based on an unproven hypothesis about the causes of heart disease. Decades after America’s food supply was reformulated to reduce consumption of these "bad actors," the U.S. government retracted the limits on total fat and dietary cholesterol after finding no evidence to support them. Strict saturated fat limits remain official U.S. dietary policy, although this last pillar is wobbling. As lead author and scientist on the EAT-Lancet Commission, Willett had a responsibility to disclose in the report that his interpretations are not in line with other experts in the field. Billions of dollars have been spent on saturated fat research, largely by NIH, generating decades of data from randomized control trials involving nearly 75,000 people. These studies show no benefits from reducing saturated fats in reducing coronary heart disease events or total cardiovascular disease, including stroke. The 2015 BMJ investigation revealed that the U.S. Dietary Commission had ignored, or never reviewed, this large body of research on saturated fat. The EAT-Lancet Commission makes saturated fat limits foundational to its diet design, citing the U.S. government’s policy as justification for the dramatic limits it puts on foods such as red meat, eggs and dairy in its "healthy reference diet" — the diet for optimum health before any modifications for environmental considerations. However, Willett has become a minority voice about the perils of saturated fat in top nutrition circles. At a June meeting of the world’s leading nutrition scientists the BMJ hosted in Switzerland, researchers agreed that the concern over saturated fat and heart disease was "history." The BMJ editor called for a public mea culpa by nutrition scientists. Willett was in attendance. He may not have agreed with his colleagues, but as lead author and scientist on the EAT-Lancet Commission, he had a responsibility to disclose in the EAT-Lancet report that his interpretations of the science on saturated fat are not in line with other experts in his field; and to ensure the EAT-Lancet Commission had representation of alternative viewpoints. Willett's long-held views about saturated fat have made him a leading voice about the health dangers of red meat. Was this possibly a factor in his appointment as lead author of the report? At the EAT-Lancet launch in Oslo, he compared the health impacts of eating red meat to smoking cigarettes. Given the weak evidence base against unprocessed red meat — in fact, it has nutritional advantages over many other foods — the comparison suggests ideology is trumping his scientific objectivity.