A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned several new studies that elicited much media attention. I am now getting around to them.
Let’s start with the article in the BMJ about newly discovered data from the Minnesota Heart Study purportedly casting doubt on the risks of saturated fat (here’s what the Washington Post said about it).
The BMJ article concluded:
Findings from the Minnesota Coronary Experiment add to growing evidence that incomplete publication has contributed to overestimation of the benefits of replacing saturated fat with vegetable oils rich in linoleic acid.
I’ve been at this game long enough to guess that any statement suggesting that everything you thought you knew about nutrition is wrong ought to raise red flags and call for more than the usual degree of skepticism.
Here are some sensible and, yes, skeptical comments about this study:
From Julia Belluz of Vox
But there were a few major problems with the research. The study involved men and women of an average age of 52 who had been admitted to a nursing home and six state mental health hospitals because they were sick. The researchers who conducted the meta-analysis note the “results are not necessarily generalizable to populations without mental illnesses or living outside nursing homes.”
Another issue: The study followed 9,423 women and men, but only a quarter of the participants followed the diets for more than a year. Al…