Public health experts are on edge over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s plans. His goal is to have Americans eat more saturated fats, which flies in the face of foundering decades of conventional dietary wisdom. Kennedy’s upcoming guidance is based on emerging research by Ronald Krauss, a prominent scientist whose studies suggest that saturated fat may be less harmful than previously believed.
Krauss has been highly influential in the field of research on dietary fats. He goes so far as to argue that saturated fat is “relatively neutral,” directly contradicting decades-old scientific consensus. His research indicates that today’s dietary guidelines, which recommend no more than 10% of total calories from saturated fat, are too strict. They seem to be pretty arbitrary. Krauss argues, “if you don’t focus so much on where the line might be drawn around how much saturated fat, what you can see is that the more saturated fat that’s consumed in the population, the higher the risk for elevated cholesterol, the more people develop cardiovascular disease.”
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans is the every five year report released by the independent Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee. This report is anchored by a comprehensive look at existing research. That new report, which will likely inform the next edition of the Dietary Guidelines for 2025 through 2030, has not been released. It seems like the current administration is breaking with tradition by disregarding the established process for developing new dietary guidelines. A number of indications point to this alarming trend.
Kennedy wants school lunches and military rations to have saturated fat levels raised to as high as 18% or 19%. This recommendation begs the question as to the nutritional content of these meals. Most of us experts are shaking in our boots. They are concerned that this change will worsen the health of vulnerable populations, such as children and service members.
Cheryl Anderson, immediate past chair of the board, American Heart Association. She understands the urgent necessity to modernize our nutrition guidelines and go beyond the narrow, reductive obsession with individual nutrients such as saturated fats. Anderson pushes back on Krauss’s claim that saturated fats are “neutral.” Anderson reiterates that today’s American diet is loaded with unproductive calories, including too much saturated fat. We can certainly not ignore its proven impact on public health.
“When you look at the current American diet, there’s too much saturated fat in it, and so, currently, it’s not having a neutral impact on our population,” – Cheryl Anderson
Anderson goes on to make an even stronger case against the idea of softening the message about the danger of saturated fats. She states, “One couldn’t really justify to any institutional review board asking people to consume high levels of foods containing high levels of saturated fat for 20 years to determine whether that has an impact on heart disease.”
The backlash over Kennedy’s suggestions is indicative of a much larger and contentious conversation at play in the scientific community about dietary guidelines. In one of their arguments, Krauss takes the position that talking about foods—not just nutrients—is necessary for the public and the science, well, to be scientific. He notes, “People don’t eat nutrients. They eat foods.”
Experts say that when health claims cherry-pick the evidence to support their argument while ignoring the broader context, it can result in misleading—or even false—conclusions. Anderson concedes that some of Kennedy’s views on processed foods do indeed coincide with responsible dietary recommendations. Overall, he says, there isn’t a good body of evidence to support Kennedy’s position on saturated fats.
“The guy is looking at evidence in a very cherrypicking kind of ways,” – Ronald Krauss
The discussion surrounding saturated fat consumption is turning on a dime. It now remains to be seen how Kennedy’s guidance will help shift public perception and dietary practice. His assertion that promoting the consumption of saturated fats from dairy and meat could provide a rationale for their inclusion in schools raises ethical questions about public health initiatives.
“Stress the need to eat saturated fats of dairy, of good meat, of fresh meat and vegetables … when we release those, it will give everybody the rationale for driving it into our schools,” – Robert F Kennedy Jr (via The Hill)
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