http://nutritionfacts.org/video/nuts-an ... -lowering/
which he touts as:
Nuts and Bolts of Cholesterol Lowering: A pooled analysis of studies on nut consumption, cholesterol levels, and risk of death from heart disease show extraordinary benefits, suggesting we should eat nuts every day.
First I have to give a little credit to Dr. Greger as he, for the first time, admits and reveals that many nut studies are funded by the nut industry, and that they use tricks to try to make the benefits of nuts appear much stronger than they are.
That said, Greger misses the point entirely on the studies he is touting today -- because they are perfect examples of the nut industry using sleight of hand to try to make nuts look like magic foods.
First, the Pooled Analysis which Greger discusses today has this as the first thing, under "Author Affiliations":
Financial Disclosure: Drs Sabaté and Ros have received research funding from the California Walnut Commission, the Almond Board of California, the National Peanut Board, and the International Tree Nut Council; they are also unpaid members of the Scientific Advisory Council of the California Walnut Commission. Dr Sabaté has received an honorarium as a member of the Pistachio Scientific Advisory Board.
see this at: http://archinte.jamanetwork.comarticle. ... eid=415912
So the authors of the analysis Greger touts have gotten a nutty amount of money from the nut industry. I would venture to say their livelihood depends on the nut industry.
And yes, this Pooled Analysis was paid for by the International Tree Nut Council Research and Education Foundation, in addition to being conducted by two researchers who get a lot of money from the nut industry. These are the same nut researchers, by the way, who claim that nuts cause weight loss in other studies, but when you look at the data in these studies, it shows the reverse. Not too honest...
Greger seems to be catching on that just because a food is vegan doesn't mean that the vegan food industry behind it isn't above pushing bad studies to make small benefits look huge, just like the dairy or any other industry does.
Here is a copy of the full study that Greger is talking about, as a pdf file:
http://archinte.jamanetwork.com/data/Jo ... 21_827.pdf
The Analysis Greger spotlights today shows that nuts can lower total cholesterol about 5.1% compared to control groups.
Greger mentions that the Analysis shows that LDL (or "bad" cholesterol") can be lowered up to around 10% by eating nuts -- if your LDL is over 160 to start, which is extremely high. If you have a low cholesterol to start, eating nuts won't have much impact.
As many in the veg world already know, a 5% decrease in cholesterol or a 10% decrease in LDL cholesterol (but only when it is above 160 to start, which is extremely high) is not a very significant amount of cholesterol lowering.
The following I've lifted and summarized from this article on nuts which talks about the same Pooled Analysis:
http://www.vegsource.com/news/2012/07/c ... -nuts.html
To get the very modest cholesterol lowering effect shown in the Pooled Analysis, you would have to eat 20% of your calories from nuts, such as 3 ounces of cashews a day. Less nuts means less improvement.
That's a lot of nuts to add to get very little benefit. And here is the kicker from the authors:
"Greater cholesterol lowering effect is found when nuts replace saturated fat than when olive oil or carbohydrates are replaced."
So if you replace 450 calories of bacon cheeseburgers with 450 calories of nuts, you'll get a very modest reduction of your awful 190 LDL.
But if you eat 450 calories of nuts in place of 450 calories of sweet potatoes and brown rice, forget about it. You won't see any meaningful benefit.
So basically this research on nuts is meaningless to people eating McDougall, Fuhrman, Esselstyn, Pritikin or Ornish diets. There's no meaningful cholesterol lowering impact, according to the Analysis Greger touts today.
In the video Greger goes into other studies and presents a table showing THEORETICAL ESTIMATES for a reduction in death rates, correlated with nut intake. This isn't from any controlled trials, like Pooled Analysis he talks about.
The estimates of reduction in death rates are drawn from studies like the Nurses Health Study or the Iowa Women's Health Study. These were not "nut studies" but studies where people filled out a questionnaire about their diet at one point. Many years later, food-industry researchers go through data to make all manner of speculation on the impact of one particular food and one disease, from these pools of women.
Greger calls them "some of the best studies" but in fact they are some of the weakest.
What makes these studies so weak is that the same group eating more nuts also eats less meat, exercises more, doesn't smoke, and eats more fruits and veggies. But the nut industry-paid researchers want to say it all comes down to the nuts and they make fancy diagrams of estimates, like the ones Greger shows today, to try to make nuts look like manna from heaven -- based PURELY on theoretical speculation and estimates.
As previously mentioned on this forum, using an "evidence-based rating system," the FDA scientists gave these health claims about nuts and cholesterol-lowering, which Greger is touting, only a C grade, which “represents a low level of comfort among qualified scientists that the claimed relationship is scientifically valid.” In other words, qualified scientists think this is mostly hype and not much good evidence.
This is the claim the FDA allowed for nuts: “scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating 1.5 ounces of nuts per day, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease.” (The exception is walnuts, which got a B.) The FDA also insisted the label also contain a caution: “See nutrition information for fat content.”
Anything below an "A" grade from the FDA rating system is advertising hype, and not really reliable or widely-accepted science, and that includes the Pooled Analysis Greger hypes today as "extraordinary."
Not really.