6 ms·

This is another example of group-think in scientific research. The same thing happened for decades where low fat diets were supposed to help for heart disease b

This is another example of group-think in scientific research. The same thing happened for decades where low fat diets were supposed to help for heart disease but that has only recently been reversed after decades of indoctrination. This happens all throughout scientific research, where science is supposed to be immune to this, but it's obviously not. So many things we take as gospel, only to be reversed decades later, and it has to do with how things get funded which is unfortunately leading society the wrong way.

Galanwe 7y ago
> “ The same thing happened for decades where low fat diets were supposed to help for heart disease but that has only recently been reversed” Oh did not know that. Do you have reference material?
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  A shill scientist was paid to promote high sugar, low fat diet a few decades ago by the sugar lobby. Just like every other food paper quoted in the press.
- catoc 7y ago
  Read this: https://thebigfatsurprise.com/ https://thebigfatsurprise.com/ The website initially may look like yet another diet approach, but this is actually a serious publication. And a good read.
  - jonplackett 7y ago
    I spoke to someone about this the other day and they claimed it was now the dairy and meat industry campaigning in response to get their fatty foods re-accepted. Is there any truth to this? Or anyone heard anything about this?
    - catoc 7y ago
      I actually did read the book. It is really well researched. It certainly did not come across like that when the book was first published.
      - jonplackett 7y ago
        Which book do you mean?
  - anewvillager 7y ago
    It's certainly a controversial book. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Teicholz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Teicholz > Teicholz' claims were harshly criticized by the DGAC, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and others, including a petition signed by 180 scientists, and they called for the BMJ to retract the article or issue corrections.[11][13][16][19][20] The BMJ issued a correction in October 2015 and another in December 2016, the latter with a statement that after an independent review of the paper, it had decided not to retract it.[21][22][23][24] > Meanwhile, the Arnold Foundation had been pressing for Congressional hearings about the DGAC report and attempted to block the release of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans; its lobbying group arranged meetings for Teicholz with members of Congress and White House staff.[11][13] Teicholz and the Foundation were criticized at the time for being allies of the meat and dairy industries in their lobbying and other public relations efforts to maintain high levels of meat and dairy consumption by US consumers.[25][26]
    - catoc 7y ago
      Yes, the sugar industry was not silenced by this book, so the fight continued. And I am sure you can come up with criticisms about any research publication. But the main point is undisputed: the "low-fat" science at that time was not purely science. It had been influenced - for years - by lobbyists and scientists with a personal agenda. Then it becomes like so many topics these days: when people (I don't mean you anewvillager) throw enough counter arguments - true or not - distinguishing the truths becomes harder and harder, certainly for the population at large, not so well versed in the subject. [BTW: I have no affiliations whatsoever with the author or the books, other than that I read it]
- peter_retief 7y ago
  There is a lot of evidence that low fat diets have contributed to the metabolic syndrome epidemic over the last few decades. Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. The latest studies show overwhelming evidence of the dangers of cutting back on fat but many academics refuse to change their views.
- ncmncm 7y ago
  The original health warnings were not about fat, but about meat. That ran into the meat-packing lobby, and then everything after had to be couched in terms of fat. There has never been evidence that fats were bad, as such, just meat as produced in the US, and sugar. But no one was allowed to say so.
  - vixen99 7y ago
    But how do you define 'original'? in 1956 the American Heart Association announced that a 'diet which included large amounts of butter, lard, eggs, and beef would lead to coronary heart disease'. Not just meat! See also the enormously influential study and conclusion by Ancel Keys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys. His seven countries study stressed the dangers of cholesterol and fat. It's interesting that Keys, credited with discovering the Mediterranean Diet, died at the age of 101.
    - Gibbon1 7y ago
      Fred Kummerow died at 102. And unlike Keys got to eat eggs and butter every morning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Kummerow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Kummerow
      - superpermutat0r 7y ago
        People living over 100 years old obviously have huge genetic factors that allow them to have unhealthy habits (or at least unhealthy for the normal person). I mean, there are people over 100 that smoke every day.
        Gibbon1 7y ago
        parent tried bolstering his claim by mentioning the Keys lived to 100. I point out that Kummerow who did good research outlived him. Seriously Keys work is garbage. Where the publicly unknown Kummerow's research was spot on. If you don't know who Kummerow is he's the guy that finally forced the FDA to ban transfats decades after they were known to be poison.
igorkraw 7y ago
While I'm all for changing funding systems I want to point out that there fact we have these scandals is the system somewhat working. Similarly to how constant criticism of the government/large corporations isn't a sign of rot, but of a system where improvements are still possible -as long as someone is pointing out the problems you can fix them. And science is not supposed to be immune to this, the culture of science is supposed to uncover things like this/errors like this as part of a process. The truth has a habit of shining through if you are encouraged to keep asking questions and follow up on them. And again, not saying the system is perfect or that calling things out is enough. But too often comments like this get turned anti-science or "we can't improve anything, slow decay is inevitable" cynicism (or FUD if you want to be less charitable)
- rapsey 7y ago
  > While I'm all for changing funding systems I want to point out that there fact we have these scandals is the system somewhat working. After decades. The only reason there is a "scandal" is because it is medical. There is shit like this in almost every scientific field holding back progress.
- bsder 7y ago
  > The truth has a habit of shining through if you are encouraged to keep asking questions and follow up on them. I would say that the latest Alzheimer's drug failure finally broke the camel's back. While NIH will tolerate groupthink indefinitely, biopharma eventually wants a payback. I suspect biopharma pulling funding and causing the amyloid people to suddenly lose clout is more to blame for the come-to-Jesus party in Alzheimer's land.
- gyuserbti 7y ago
  This standard sentiment seems to me to be a machiavellian justification for the status quo and for not trying to improve anything. The costs of the problems are the problem, not whether they are eventually resolved extremely ineffiently.
  - igorkraw 7y ago
light_hue_1 7y ago
This isn't the same as the situation around low fat diet at all. That research is intentionally distorted by companies who want to avoid the reality of what is needed: moderation, modest calorie intake and low sugar diets. The situation in the scientific literature was always far more fluid and complicated than what was communicated to the public because industry paid to communicate only the research they wanted. https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article/63/2/139/772615 https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article/63/2/139/772615 has a nice overview, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5099084/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5099084/ talks about how industry intentionally distorted research, and http://resources.betterfly.com/uploads_resources/20000/19456/2316.pdf http://resources.betterfly.com/uploads_resources/20000/19456... talks about how the government listens to corporations not scientists and how the science was always in doubt. The situation isn't even close, low-fat diets are an example of how science is distorted by evil and money without a care for the lives of millions.
- ben_w 7y ago
  The underlying cause may be completely different, but it’s probably useful to group them together under the category “ways our societies can be wrong, even if part of that society tries to correct the whole”.
  - SiempreViernes 7y ago
    Useful if you want to make a list of all the different ways, but not at all meaningfull if you want to make society steer a sensible course as they cannot be treated the same way. I think your list needs to have religion and political game theory on it as well.
- ping_pong 7y ago
  No. The fact is decades of research confirmed this wrong science, or the scientific community just ate what was spoon fed to them. No one questioned it. I lived through decades of indoctrination that low fat diets helped and this was echoed by everyone including doctors and scientists. The same goes for things as wide spread as amyloids or even string theory. Decades are wasted because scientists are too afraid of getting their careers ruined.
kristopolous 7y ago
Scientific truth is a competing value, not an exclusive one. I wish it was exclusive, but it just isn't. There's ego, prestige, institutions, social arrangement, capital structures... The practice of science is the cleanest practice we've found but its quest for truth hasn't fully escaped the influence of these things. There may be a way to structure the finances, work, and collaboration to escape these things through some new kind of institutional approach, but it's just not there yet. Compare science to its predecessors, such as witchcraft and magic (ex: a medicinal herb would have been called magic for centuries). Look at zoology's predecessor, bestiary studies, wherein sea monsters, unicorns, and a giraffe were considered in the same class of anecdotal creatures. Psychology works far better than its predecessors as well, astrology and exorcisms. Science is a far better approach then these things but there's still work left to do. We're not at the end of history but instead are tasked with moving it forward.
arethuza 7y ago
That kind of behaviour in science was identified a long time ago, as Max Planck put it: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle
Dumblydorr 7y ago
That's a fairly different example, as there has been a lot more low quality, industry funded science in nutrition than in Alzheimers. Sad as it is, those who profited from sugar sales funded a lot of garbage work into low fat diets.
mrfusion 7y ago
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge climate change believer. But it does strike me as funny that climate change is above being charged with group think. We label them deniers.
- marcosdumay 7y ago
  > We label them deniers. I don't remember ever being modded down here by challenging some GW related assumption. But if people come just generally stating that GW is based on group thinking, with no scope or analysis of what they disagree, they do get modded down, as they should.
imtringued 7y ago
The thing about low fat diets is that you are not supposed to compensate the lack of fat by adding more refined sugar.

Galanwe 7y ago

> “ The same thing happened for decades where low fat diets were supposed to help for heart disease but that has only recently been reversed” Oh did not know that. Do you have reference material?

redis_mlc 7y ago
A shill scientist was paid to promote high sugar, low fat diet a few decades ago by the sugar lobby. Just like every other food paper quoted in the press.
catoc 7y ago
Read this: https://thebigfatsurprise.com/ https://thebigfatsurprise.com/ The website initially may look like yet another diet approach, but this is actually a serious publication. And a good read.
- jonplackett 7y ago
  I spoke to someone about this the other day and they claimed it was now the dairy and meat industry campaigning in response to get their fatty foods re-accepted. Is there any truth to this? Or anyone heard anything about this?
  - catoc 7y ago
    I actually did read the book. It is really well researched. It certainly did not come across like that when the book was first published.
    - jonplackett 7y ago
      Which book do you mean?
- anewvillager 7y ago
  It's certainly a controversial book. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Teicholz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Teicholz > Teicholz' claims were harshly criticized by the DGAC, the US Department of Health and Human Services, the Center for Science in the Public Interest, and others, including a petition signed by 180 scientists, and they called for the BMJ to retract the article or issue corrections.[11][13][16][19][20] The BMJ issued a correction in October 2015 and another in December 2016, the latter with a statement that after an independent review of the paper, it had decided not to retract it.[21][22][23][24] > Meanwhile, the Arnold Foundation had been pressing for Congressional hearings about the DGAC report and attempted to block the release of the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans; its lobbying group arranged meetings for Teicholz with members of Congress and White House staff.[11][13] Teicholz and the Foundation were criticized at the time for being allies of the meat and dairy industries in their lobbying and other public relations efforts to maintain high levels of meat and dairy consumption by US consumers.[25][26]
  - catoc 7y ago
    Yes, the sugar industry was not silenced by this book, so the fight continued. And I am sure you can come up with criticisms about any research publication. But the main point is undisputed: the "low-fat" science at that time was not purely science. It had been influenced - for years - by lobbyists and scientists with a personal agenda. Then it becomes like so many topics these days: when people (I don't mean you anewvillager) throw enough counter arguments - true or not - distinguishing the truths becomes harder and harder, certainly for the population at large, not so well versed in the subject. [BTW: I have no affiliations whatsoever with the author or the books, other than that I read it]
peter_retief 7y ago
There is a lot of evidence that low fat diets have contributed to the metabolic syndrome epidemic over the last few decades. Obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease. The latest studies show overwhelming evidence of the dangers of cutting back on fat but many academics refuse to change their views.
ncmncm 7y ago
The original health warnings were not about fat, but about meat. That ran into the meat-packing lobby, and then everything after had to be couched in terms of fat. There has never been evidence that fats were bad, as such, just meat as produced in the US, and sugar. But no one was allowed to say so.
- vixen99 7y ago
  But how do you define 'original'? in 1956 the American Heart Association announced that a 'diet which included large amounts of butter, lard, eggs, and beef would lead to coronary heart disease'. Not just meat! See also the enormously influential study and conclusion by Ancel Keys. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancel_Keys. His seven countries study stressed the dangers of cholesterol and fat. It's interesting that Keys, credited with discovering the Mediterranean Diet, died at the age of 101.
  - Gibbon1 7y ago
    Fred Kummerow died at 102. And unlike Keys got to eat eggs and butter every morning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Kummerow https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Kummerow
    - superpermutat0r 7y ago
      People living over 100 years old obviously have huge genetic factors that allow them to have unhealthy habits (or at least unhealthy for the normal person). I mean, there are people over 100 that smoke every day.
      - Gibbon1 7y ago
        parent tried bolstering his claim by mentioning the Keys lived to 100. I point out that Kummerow who did good research outlived him. Seriously Keys work is garbage. Where the publicly unknown Kummerow's research was spot on. If you don't know who Kummerow is he's the guy that finally forced the FDA to ban transfats decades after they were known to be poison.

igorkraw 7y ago

While I'm all for changing funding systems I want to point out that there fact we have these scandals is the system somewhat working. Similarly to how constant criticism of the government/large corporations isn't a sign of rot, but of a system where improvements are still possible -as long as someone is pointing out the problems you can fix them. And science is not supposed to be immune to this, the culture of science is supposed to uncover things like this/errors like this as part of a process. The truth has a habit of shining through if you are encouraged to keep asking questions and follow up on them. And again, not saying the system is perfect or that calling things out is enough. But too often comments like this get turned anti-science or "we can't improve anything, slow decay is inevitable" cynicism (or FUD if you want to be less charitable)

rapsey 7y ago
> While I'm all for changing funding systems I want to point out that there fact we have these scandals is the system somewhat working. After decades. The only reason there is a "scandal" is because it is medical. There is shit like this in almost every scientific field holding back progress.
bsder 7y ago
> The truth has a habit of shining through if you are encouraged to keep asking questions and follow up on them. I would say that the latest Alzheimer's drug failure finally broke the camel's back. While NIH will tolerate groupthink indefinitely, biopharma eventually wants a payback. I suspect biopharma pulling funding and causing the amyloid people to suddenly lose clout is more to blame for the come-to-Jesus party in Alzheimer's land.
gyuserbti 7y ago
This standard sentiment seems to me to be a machiavellian justification for the status quo and for not trying to improve anything. The costs of the problems are the problem, not whether they are eventually resolved extremely ineffiently.
- igorkraw 7y ago

light_hue_1 7y ago

This isn't the same as the situation around low fat diet at all. That research is intentionally distorted by companies who want to avoid the reality of what is needed: moderation, modest calorie intake and low sugar diets. The situation in the scientific literature was always far more fluid and complicated than what was communicated to the public because industry paid to communicate only the research they wanted. https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article/63/2/139/772615 https://academic.oup.com/jhmas/article/63/2/139/772615 has a nice overview, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5099084/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5099084/ talks about how industry intentionally distorted research, and http://resources.betterfly.com/uploads_resources/20000/19456/2316.pdf http://resources.betterfly.com/uploads_resources/20000/19456... talks about how the government listens to corporations not scientists and how the science was always in doubt. The situation isn't even close, low-fat diets are an example of how science is distorted by evil and money without a care for the lives of millions.

ben_w 7y ago
The underlying cause may be completely different, but it’s probably useful to group them together under the category “ways our societies can be wrong, even if part of that society tries to correct the whole”.
- SiempreViernes 7y ago
  Useful if you want to make a list of all the different ways, but not at all meaningfull if you want to make society steer a sensible course as they cannot be treated the same way. I think your list needs to have religion and political game theory on it as well.
ping_pong 7y ago
No. The fact is decades of research confirmed this wrong science, or the scientific community just ate what was spoon fed to them. No one questioned it. I lived through decades of indoctrination that low fat diets helped and this was echoed by everyone including doctors and scientists. The same goes for things as wide spread as amyloids or even string theory. Decades are wasted because scientists are too afraid of getting their careers ruined.

kristopolous 7y ago

Scientific truth is a competing value, not an exclusive one. I wish it was exclusive, but it just isn't. There's ego, prestige, institutions, social arrangement, capital structures... The practice of science is the cleanest practice we've found but its quest for truth hasn't fully escaped the influence of these things. There may be a way to structure the finances, work, and collaboration to escape these things through some new kind of institutional approach, but it's just not there yet. Compare science to its predecessors, such as witchcraft and magic (ex: a medicinal herb would have been called magic for centuries). Look at zoology's predecessor, bestiary studies, wherein sea monsters, unicorns, and a giraffe were considered in the same class of anecdotal creatures. Psychology works far better than its predecessors as well, astrology and exorcisms. Science is a far better approach then these things but there's still work left to do. We're not at the end of history but instead are tasked with moving it forward.

arethuza 7y ago

That kind of behaviour in science was identified a long time ago, as Max Planck put it: "A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it. . . . An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_principle

Dumblydorr 7y ago

That's a fairly different example, as there has been a lot more low quality, industry funded science in nutrition than in Alzheimers. Sad as it is, those who profited from sugar sales funded a lot of garbage work into low fat diets.

mrfusion 7y ago

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge climate change believer. But it does strike me as funny that climate change is above being charged with group think. We label them deniers.

marcosdumay 7y ago
> We label them deniers. I don't remember ever being modded down here by challenging some GW related assumption. But if people come just generally stating that GW is based on group thinking, with no scope or analysis of what they disagree, they do get modded down, as they should.

imtringued 7y ago

The thing about low fat diets is that you are not supposed to compensate the lack of fat by adding more refined sugar.