Beware of junk food science articles

[Guest guest]

Health Experts Make a Perverse Push for Fat-Rich, Red Meat Diets

By Martha Rosenberg, AlterNet

Posted on December 9, 2008

http://www.alternet.org/story/111000/

Would a medical journal publish an article pushing for a higher

recommended dietary allowance of protein from an author whose e-mail

address used to be smiller?

The Journal of the American Medical Association did in its June 25

issue this year in an article titled " The Recommended Dietary

Allowance of Protein: A Misunderstood Concept. "

In its Oct. 15 issue, it had to print a correction stating that

author Sharon L. Miller was " formerly employed by the National

Cattlemen's Beef Association " and author Robert R. Wolfe received

money from the Egg Nutrition Center, National Dairy Council,

National Pork Board and Beef Checkoff through the National

Cattlemen's Beef Association.

Oops.

The Cattlemen's Beef Association flack Miller and Robert R. Wolfe, a

professor of geriatrics at the Donald W. Reynolds Department of

Geriatrics, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little

Rock, have a paper trial of junk food science articles funded by Big

Food.

The dairy industry funded their Protein Metabolism in Response to

Ingestion Pattern and Composition of Proteins (Journal of Nutrition,

2002), Miller's New Frontiers in Weight Management (Journal of the

American College of Nutrition, 2002 April), and her Dietary Calcium

and Dairy Modulation of Adiposity and Obesity Risk (Nutrition

Reviews, 2004 April).

The Beef Association funded Wolfe's Dietary Protein Intake Impacts

Human Skeletal Muscle Protein Fractional Synthetic Rates After

Endurance Exercise (American Journal of Physiology -- Endocrinology

and Metabolism, 2005 October), and the Danish Meat Association and

the Danish Dairy Board sponsored his talk at the Ninth Nordic

Nutrition conference in Copenhagen in June 2008.

The talk was on guess what? Protein's crucial role in weight

management and satiety!

As director of the Center for Translational Research in Aging and

Longevity at the University of Arkansas, Wolfe leads a tireless

crusade against the red meat deficiency he and Beef Association see

in the elderly.

How many of his " more meat " articles -- Optimal Protein Intake in

the Elderly (Clinical Nutrition, 2008 Oct. 27) (with Miller), Role

Of Dietary Protein in the Sarcopenia of Aging (American Journal of

Clinical Nutrition, 2008 May), The Recommended Dietary Allowance for

Protein May Not Be Adequate for Older People to Maintain Skeletal

Muscle (Journals of Gerontology Series A: Biological Sciences and

Medical Sciences, 2001 June 5), Aging Does Not Impair the Anabolic

Response to a Protein-Rich Meal (American Journal of Clinical

Nutrition, 2007 August), and Seniors Need More Protein-Rich Food to

Decrease Muscle Loss (Medical News Today, 2007) -- have the Beef

Association's hoof prints on them?

And Wolfe does not restrict his nostrums to the elderly.

He presided over the infusion with endotoxin of 18 laboratory pigs --

" until the pulmonary arterial pressure reached a pressure similar

to that found in trauma victims " -- to reach the conclusion, after

killing them and removing their lungs, " that the common practice of

providing calories in the form of polyunsaturated [non-red neat]

fatty acids to critically ill patients carries the risk of being

detrimental to lung function " (Nutrition, 2002 July-Aug. 18).

Yes, the animals died from a saturated -at deficiency! Not from

the " risks " perpetrated by Wolfe, et al.

Of course, most people know by now that red meat is a rich and

varied source of cancer and cardiovascular disease which is as good

for you -- and as necessary -- as cigarettes.

Which is why Big Meat is running scared.

Ninety-five percent of " Registered dietitians reported they believe

people already get too much protein in their diet, " says the

National Cattlemen's Beef Association in its October 2008 quarterly

update.

This indicates the need " for widespread dissemination of the

scientific evidence supporting the role of protein in optimal health

in order to alter the current misperceptions about protein in the

diet, " say the Cattlemen.

It also explains Wolfe's fool's errand to JAMA in which he wrote

(before a correction was run), " A variety of studies have shown

levels of protein intake above the RDA benefiting muscle mass,

strength, and function, bone health, maintenance of energy balance,

cardiovascular function and wound healing, " probably referring to

his own work.

Maybe journals need to see e-mails that read @onthetake.org.

Martha Rosenberg is a columnist and cartoonist who frequently writes

about the impact of the pharmaceutical, food and gun industries on

public health. A former medical copywriter, her work has appeared in

the Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times and

Chicago Tribune, as well as on the BBC and in the original National

Lampoon.

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