> To estimate the optimal intake for each dietary factor, we first calculated the level of intake associated with the lowest risk of mortality from each disease

> To estimate the optimal intake for each dietary factor, we first calculated the level of intake associated with the lowest risk of mortality from each disease endpoint based on the studies included in the metaanalyses of the dietary relative risks. Then, we calculated the optimal level of intake as the weighted mean of these numbers using the global proportion of deaths from each disease as the weight. That methodology sounds like it would only be valid if each type of harm functioned entirely independently and was only affected by a single intake factor? The words "carbohydrate" and "calorie" appear nowhere in the study. Did they allow the effects of caloric malnutrition to skew the calculations of optimal intake levels? If consuming more carbohydrates is helpful compared to being malnourished, that does nothing to show that there's a minimum level of fruit and grains that are necessary for health. If adding more fat intake to a high carbohydrate diet is harmful, that doesn't necessarily mean fat is universally unhealthy. This just seems like a report of correlations that are biased by the distribution of diets that are being commonly consumed.