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FWIW I think contrarian scientific viewpoints are important if they're rigorous, and Teicholz makes a reasonable case for the viewpoint that saturated fat reduc

FWIW I think contrarian scientific viewpoints are important if they're rigorous, and Teicholz makes a reasonable case for the viewpoint that saturated fat reductions are unrelated to mortality. However, I don't think Teicholz herself is really being entirely "factual", bringing purported conflicts of interest into her discourse when it goes on on both sides. People have pointed out that her organization has its own history with this problem: https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/257353-coalition-is-full-of-baloney-on-nutrition-guidelines/ https://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/healthcare/257353-co.... That isn't addressing your question but I guess I disagree that Teicholz is just dispassionately presenting a rigorous argument, even if I find it compelling myself. Some of what she writes is sort of misleading (as that linked piece points out) even if I think her most cogent arguments are reasonable. A lot of her arguments hinge on how you see things like the Cochrane meta-analysis. Her sensitivity analysis with colleagues is compelling in dismissing the CVE result in that meta-analysis, but at the same time you can whittle away any effect if there's not a big enough N (in a sort of inverse form of p-hacking), so I'm not sure I'm entirely convinced either. Also as that piece points out, Teicholz seems dismissive of anything that's not mortality as an outcome, which I'm not sure I agree with. I'm sympathetic to Teicholz's arguments, I guess I just feel like she doesn't make them any more convincingly to me than those she criticizes. At this point for me personally my reading of the literature is that a lot of things are related to individual physiology, and I'm skeptical of a lot of blanket recommendations regarding nutrition. Reducing saturated fats has been good for me personally so I stick with that.

KempyKolibri 2y ago
I think dietary matrix is also important, so dietary patterns can be more useful than focusing on individual nutrients. Hard cheeses seem to be associated with positive health outcomes despite their SFA content, yet for butter the inverse is true. I think what I find frustrating about Nina is the number of fairly basic misreadings of the evidence she makes, despite having been corrected on it (and admitting the error) multiple times. She also grossly mischaracterises the results of studies repeatedly, so misleads laypeople into thinking the evidence base is more heterogenous than it really is. Additionally, she frequently makes contradictory statements regarding her own epistemology. For example, she states that observational studies can “only show association” and therefore cannot be used for causal inference, yet her twitter account is full of examples of her using observational data to draw causal inferences. You mention a sensitivity analysis of Hooper that she conducted. Do you have a link to that?

KempyKolibri 2y ago

I think dietary matrix is also important, so dietary patterns can be more useful than focusing on individual nutrients. Hard cheeses seem to be associated with positive health outcomes despite their SFA content, yet for butter the inverse is true. I think what I find frustrating about Nina is the number of fairly basic misreadings of the evidence she makes, despite having been corrected on it (and admitting the error) multiple times. She also grossly mischaracterises the results of studies repeatedly, so misleads laypeople into thinking the evidence base is more heterogenous than it really is. Additionally, she frequently makes contradictory statements regarding her own epistemology. For example, she states that observational studies can “only show association” and therefore cannot be used for causal inference, yet her twitter account is full of examples of her using observational data to draw causal inferences. You mention a sensitivity analysis of Hooper that she conducted. Do you have a link to that?