Since 2014, the US Dept. of Agriculture has a record of “burying” the science
“I was wondering if we should have a separate section on low-carb diets rather than burying it,” wrote Harvard nutrition professor Frank Hu about the official expert report for the 2015 U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans. Over the past decade, thousands of scientists, doctors and others have urged officials overseeing our nation’s nutrition policy to pay attention to studies on low-carbohydrate diets, yet even as the science has advanced rapidly, the federal agencies in charge of the guidelines seem ever-more intent on ignoring and yes, burying the science.
The literature on low-carb is now vast. A quick search for “low-carbohydrate” on pubmed.gov, a government database of scientific studies, today turns up 7,821 publications, including 858 clinical trials (the most rigorous kind of evidence).12 Compare this to the 401 trials on the “vegetarian diet,” which has been formally recommended by the U.S. guidelines since 2015.
Of course quantity is not quality, but the American Diabetes Association judged low-carb to have “most evidence for improving glycemia” [blood sugar control], the key issue for people with with diabetes. And the diet produces “more weight loss” than a higher-carb option, according to the American Heart Association.
Yet here is the recent history on how the U.S. Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services (USDA-HHS), the federal agencies that co-issue the guidelines every five years, have treated this large body of scientific literature:
- For the 2015 guidelines, the USDA3 conducted a formal review of this literature and found 40 studies but unlike its other reviews, kept this one hidden and did not even reveal the fact that it had been conducted. The review’s existence was only discovered in emails obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA);
- Five years later, for the 2020 guidelines, the USDA publicly reviewed the low-carbohydrate diet but could find no studies meeting its inclusion criteria on the topic;
- For the upcoming 2025 guidelines, USDA has proposed ignoring low-carbohydrate diets altogether.
How could this happen?
Yeah, the “Food Pyramid” issued by the FDA since the 1970s in one form or another has always been wrong. Carbs, especially highly processed ones, are bad for us, despite the government’s best advice.
Momma, those RC Colas and Moon Pies you give the kids for breakfast are killing them.