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The Most Important Study of the Mediterranean Diet Has Been Retracted (qz.com)
Zorro shares a report from Quartz: In 2013, the New England Journal of Medicine published a landmark study that found that people put on a Mediterranean diet had a 30% lower chance of heart attack, stroke, or death from cardiovascular disease than people on a low-fat diet. It received massive media and public attention when released, and since has been cited by 3,268 other scientific papers. The study had tremendous impact on the field of nutrition and health science. Yesterday (June 13), however, the journal retracted the study -- providing a new reason for skepticism about how effective the now-popular Mediterranean diet really is.
The reasons for the withdrawal are complicated, having to do with the methodology of the study. As Alison McCook of the Retraction Watch blog writes for NPR, this retraction is the result of the work of John Carlisle, a British anesthesiologist and self-taught statistician. Carlisle has spent recent years analyzing over 5,000 published randomized controlled trials (the gold standard of medical science research) to see how likely they were to have actually been properly randomized. In 2017, he reported his results: at least 2% of the studies were problematic. One was the 2013 NEJM article on the Mediterranean diet.
The reasons for the withdrawal are complicated, having to do with the methodology of the study. As Alison McCook of the Retraction Watch blog writes for NPR, this retraction is the result of the work of John Carlisle, a British anesthesiologist and self-taught statistician. Carlisle has spent recent years analyzing over 5,000 published randomized controlled trials (the gold standard of medical science research) to see how likely they were to have actually been properly randomized. In 2017, he reported his results: at least 2% of the studies were problematic. One was the 2013 NEJM article on the Mediterranean diet.
There are many animals in this world in that if you give them an unlimited supply of food, they will keep on eating until they die; often in very short order.
We humans aren't much different, with the exception of it taking a munch longer timeline.
Eat healthy, and don't consume more calories than your body can burn. The math does catch up with you, and the results show themselves in the form of fat.
Life is not for the lazy.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Of course, the fact that we are and have been omnivores for millions of years has no bearing on this.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
We humans aren't much different, with the exception of it taking a munch longer timeline.
I saw what you did there,
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
It has always been my firm belief that the key to a successful Mediterranean diet is consuming copious quantities of wine. Everything else becomes irrelevant once you've mastered that part of it.
The summary is misleading because it omits mention that the randomization errors were inconsequential. The study conclusion remains the same when the improperly randomized subjects are excluded.
from the linked article:
It turns out approximately 14 percent of the more than 7,400 study participants hadn't been assigned randomly to either the Mediterranean diet or a low-fat one. When couples joined the study together, both had been picked to follow the same diet. At one of the 11 participating study sites, the lead investigator had assigned the same diet to an entire village and didn't tell the rest of the investigators.
"This affected only a small part of the trial," says Martínez González. When the researchers reanalyzed the data excluding the nonrandomized people, the results were the same, he adds.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
And if you follow the link to the 2017 study, what becomes clear is that the poor and rich people were eating different versions of the "Mediterranean Diet". They all ate mainly foods from the list, but the proportions and variety varied between groups.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
>"The healthiest diet is a plant-based diet."
This is doubtful. It appears the healthiest diet consists of grilled meat, plus a variety vegetables. Vegetable oil from the fleshy part of the plant (olive oil, avocado oil, palmfruit oil, coconut oil) is healthy, while vegetable oil from seeds (palm kernel oil, corn oil, soybean oil, sunflower oil, etc.) is unhealthy. Excessive heat can turn healthy fats into unhealthy trans fats, so avoid frying.
Cholesterol is a vital nutrient. You don't get high blood cholesterol from eating cholesterol. Every molecule of cholesterol in your body was manufactured by your liver. High or low, your LDL cholesterol levels don't matter. What matters is the ratio of triglycerides to HDL cholesterol. Triglycerides should be low, HDL should be high.
Avoid flour and sugar. Avoid dense carbohydrates, unless you are an athlete, then you should eat carbs in the proper proportion and at the proper time for your athletic activity.
Eggs are basically a superfood. For best results, use a relatively low-temperature method of cooking your eggs: boiled, poached, or sous vide.
High ferritin (iron) levels in the blood encourage bacterial growth and inflammation. The body doesn't really have a good way of shedding iron, so consider donating blood twice per year to get your iron levels down to the low end of the normal range.
Statins don't seem to do anything except accelerate aging.
Calcium supplements don't seem to do anything except increase the risk of heart attack.
"50 Years Ago, Sugar Industry Quietly Paid Scientists To Point Blame At Fat"
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat
"High Cholesterol Tied to Lower Cognitive Decline Risk in Oldest Old"
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/893921?src=soc_tw_180317_mscpedt_news_neuro_chl&faf=1
"Higher Cholesterol Is Associated with Longer Life"
http://roguehealthandfitness.com/higher-cholesterol-associated-with-longer-life/
"High cholesterol 'does not cause heart disease' new research finds, so treating with statins a 'waste of time'"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2016/06/12/high-cholesterol-does-not-cause-heart-disease-new-research-finds/
First, some background:
Statistical methods are based on what are known as "stable distributions". A stable distribution is one where a subset of examples, selected randomly, will have the same characteristics as the full set. Normally this refers to a bell curve, so if you have a bell curve population and you select a sample at random, then the sample mean will tend towards the population mean and the sample width will tend towards the population width.
It is this characteristic that lets us extend measurements of characteristics from a subset to the characteristics of the whole population.
(There are a couple of other distributions that are stable, but they are fairly rare in the real world. IIRC, Nile river flooding follows a Levy distribution, and was the first instance of a stable distribution that wasn't a bell curve.)
This only works if the subset selection is random. If the selection isn't random, then the results can be skewed towards randomness (you won't see an effect that's there, the most likely outcome) or phantom effects that aren't really there.
That is the defect in the Mediterranean diet study, that the participants were not placed on one diet (or the other) at random. In particular, husband and wife participants were both placed on the same diet, and in one case an entire town of participants were placed on the same diet.
Of note: When the flawed placements are deleted from the data, the Mediterranean diet still stands and there is still a clear effect indicated by the data.
"This affected only a small part of the trial," says Martínez González. When the researchers reanalyzed the data excluding the nonrandomized people, the results were the same, he adds.
So the conclusions of the study are still strong: the diet correlates well and strongly with reduced heart attacks.
Out of an abundance of caution and professional ethics, the study was adjusted with softer language in the conclusions.
And yet, our noble MSM is reporting only that the study was retracted, comparing it to 50-ish other studies that were similarly flawed.
With predictable results, such as the post this is in reply to.
(Exercise for the reader: Is the MSM doing more harm than good here, or is it the other way around? Many, many other articles report the news with an opinion, such as "Trump meets with Kim, but it won't result in anything useful". Why couldn't NPR have a similar headline for *this* article, such as "Diet study retracted, despite being accurate"?)
@raymoris: The quote is accurate, just not from the source article you quoted, but from the second/last one in the post from NPR which is the original source: https://www.npr.org/sections/h...
The Slashdot story has 2 separate articles that covers the topic. One from Quarts and the other from NPR which was one of the sources used for the Quarts article.
The Quarts article quotes the NPR article, but it failed to include what @Nothingburger mentioned which I agree, makes for a misleading summary and should have been included, but does not change the fact that the paper has been retracted.
I would say it that with the additional analysis that was offered by study's main author that excluding the nonrandomized people, the results were the same would imply that the paper's conclusion could still stands, but will probably need to be resubmitted with the changes to be accepted since the original submitted paper does have some issues as-is due to the nonrandomized people being included in the results.
Please moderate the Parent GP posts correctly by verifying the truth of those posts before you moderate up or down.
It is easy:
1. Go to the slashdot summary. There are three links in that article. Verify that the third link is to this article.
2. Scroll down in that article to, about the 17th paragraph, which begins "It turns out approximately 14 percent of the more than 7,400 study participants hadn't "
3. Compare that paragraph and next to the quoted paragraphs in the GP post to confirm that they match, confirming that the GP truthfully quotes an article linked in the /. summary.
4. Read the sentence in the parent post which states "Please kindly refrain from making up random bullshit and pretending you are quoting the article". Because in the previous step you have verified that the GP accurately quotes a linked article, yet the Parent emphatically and profanely states the opposite, conclude that the author of the parent post is a troll.
5. Moderate the parent post accordingly. It belongs at -1, Troll, down with the goatse posts.
6. Moderate the GP at least back up to what it default to when originally posted at, +2. Unless, using our own judgment, you can find a compelling reason otherwise to object to its content.
7. Consider moderating this post up as you see fit. In the humble opinion of its author, it makes a helpful point: with little effort moderators can improve /. by assessing the truth or falsity of posts before assigning mod points.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
After I wrote my post, I went off to do some other things and it occurred to me there was more than one link in the summary. I figured I'd better check to see if the other link did in fact say that, because if so - well then I'm an asshole.
Indeed, I was wrong.
Thanks for being so gracious in the manner in which you pointed that out.
I'm sorry, Jodka. I was both wrong AND rude.
You are of course correct, the summary links multiple articles. I apologize. I was both wrong and rude.
Normally I have mod points but today I don't, so I can't mod myself down. :)
There are many animals in this world in that if you give them an unlimited supply of food, they will keep on eating until they die; often in very short order.
I grew up on a dairy farm and I'd see this happen. I personally didn't see a cow eat itself to death but I have seen cows eat until they got sick and had heard stories of people having to dispose of cows that had eaten until they died. This seems to only be true of corn feed though, a cow will know enough to stop eating grass/alfalfa/haylage eventually. I do remember a calf that didn't know enough to not eat the straw. That calf got bloated and sick constantly until it learned that straw is not good food.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
Regardless, most Democrats think they're overweight because of genetics, while Republicans tend to think it's because of personal behavior. Gee, what a surprise.
I must be a moderate because I think personal behavior is genetic.
It isn't flawed if your genome is accustomed to seafood.
Europeans ate plenty of seafood for a very long time throughout history. This was put on hold for about 1000 years when the Moors invaded and tended to kill or enslave those fishing in the Mediterranean Sea.
I'm sure many would think that on an evolutionary scale this 1000 years is not likely to affect the genetic makeup of Europeans. Access to protein is important for one's health and losing access to fishing will mean needing to seek it elsewhere. This means hunting for furry and feathered creatures, and/or domesticating goats, sheep, and cattle while often consuming their milk.
Lactose tolerance in adults is for the most part highly centered on Europe. Those that couldn't fish would need protein from milk. If they couldn't tolerate drinking milk for protein then they might kill their cow to eat the meat, but then they risk running out of protein pretty quick.
There was a trade of salted fish from northern waters but that meant a potential for rotten fish, high salt intake, and so on for moving fish so far in a time where things moved at the speed of a laden ox. Oh, and since I know someone is going to ask... I'm talking about European laden oxen, not African.
BTW, Africans did have domesticated cattle but they didn't always drink the milk. To get protein from the cattle and not kill it they'd draw blood and drink that, perhaps mixed with the milk.
Getting all the nutrients you need from a vegan diet is possible, but tricky. And as Zontar the Mindless mentions on this thread, we are omnivores. Look at the teeth in our mouths and our digestive tracts. We evolved to eat food from a variety of sources. And we are predators, built for the hunt, with eyes in the front of our heads, the better to spot prey with stereo vision.
We have evolved to eat cooked food as well. This is unique to humans. Comparisons of the human digestive system to other omnivores expose this difference.
What is a bit amazing to me is that there is a difference between what men and women have evolved to eat. Meat is a dangerous food. Not only does meat fight back until it's dead but even then it can kill you from being under cooked, or as mentioned above over salted. A man getting sick from meat means he's miserable for a while, assuming it doesn't kill him. A woman getting sick runs the risk of a miscarriage if pregnant, including same the risk of death as men. Miscarriages from eating meat over long evolutionary time spans will lead to differences in the genetics. This is why pregnant women are discouraged from eating certain foods and often feel ill when eating things they would otherwise tolerate when not pregnant. Women can better tolerate a vegetarian diet than men. That's not saying it's impossible for men to go on a vegan diet, only that men run greater health risks for doing so.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
> The healthiest diet is a plant-based diet.
Humans SUCK at digesting plants. We don't have the enzymes for it. We don't have the stomachs for it.
The vast bulk of the plants we grow for our own use are completely inedible to us.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
"Our omnivorous side"? Yep, dealing with an idiot here.
BTW, Milton Mills is a fundie/"Creation Science" nutter.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The eggs thing have scientifically just been first bad and then not bad, what the media then shouts about the matter is a completely different matter. The reason why it was first seen as bad was that scientists could see that high cholesterol in your blood is bad for your health and that egg contained large amounts of cholesterol, later after more studies the scientists found out that digested cholesterol does not increase your cholesterol blood levels and thus eggs are no longer bad (for that particular reason).
Half the comments seem to be going madly off. :)
What I remember reading on retraction watch (which everyone should follow, because it's great) is that there were problems with the study. Not that the study was completely invalid or that the outcomes were now proven false. The data has to be re-analyzed based on the problems and new, if any, conclusions should be drawn from the data. If the methodological errors can be accounted for meaningfully then perhaps new, more solid, and probably less grandiose conclusions can be drawn.
One study, no matter how convincing, is just one study. The conclusions of one study are just that. Dozens of studies and lots of replications and confirmations lead to things that are closer to accuracy, but even then...
The real problem with science is that not enough time is spent in replications. They don't get published, and you can't build a career on replications. Oh, the other problem is that no one publishes null results... that's a fail. If we had studies that published null results we'd know what not to do, which is often more important than what gets published.
What it says about a diet, in this case, is really of scant importance. One size doesn't fit all in dieting anyway.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2013.808365
The diet industry doesn’t want that.
We have been conditioned to believe in a noble life style of self sacrifice. So if we are not meeting culture definition of beauty then we tie it with health issues. We shame ourselves and others for not trying hard enough.
The concept of proper diets are easy. East foods with nutrients your body needs and calories in should equal calories out (to maintain weight)
However the problem is bodies handle nutrients and calories differently. That salad and vegan diet may work for some people. While others will put their body in starvation mode so we will not burn calories as well and store them. Some people who eat food high in calories will get a burst of energy and burn it off, while others will get tired and store it.
But We expect a magic diet or give up on this one food ingredient then life would be better.
Some people gave up sugar and it did wonders others found they had too much fat in their diet.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
ITYM inedible to us without some form of processing, like grinding, soaking, boiling....
Or letting another animal eat it, and then eating that animal...
It's only a form of processing plant matter.
Try it! Library of Babel