Why Dietitians, Doctors STILL dish up bad diet advice.

Ever wondered why dietitians and doctors often dish up bad dietary advice? Check out South Africa’s official dietary guidelines. The guidelines closely follow the US dietary guidelines that are due to be updated in December 2015 – guidelines that have proved to be unscientific from the start. SA’s guidelines have featured prominently in the Health Professions Council of SA hearing against Cape Town University emeritus professor Tim Noakes that reconvenes in February 2016. One of the guidelines’ authors, retired Northwest University nutrition professor Este Vorster, gave expert testimony against Noakes and conceded under cross-examination that the guidelines are “vague sound bites”.

Here is a shortened version of a blog by US physician Dr Michael Eades in which he dissects the process by which governments develop dietary guidelines and why they are so unscientific in nature (for a link to the full version, scroll below). Eades, a world authority in low-carb, high-fat (LCHF) eating, calls the guidelines ‘a stab at being scientific, but in the end, a sorry hash of special interest infighting’. That applies as much in SA as the US. – Marika Sboros

More on this story here.

Eddie