Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
Industry-funded study of the week: Hass Avocados again
The study: Using the Avocado to Test the Satiety Effects of a Fat-Fiber Combination in Place of Carbohydrate Energy in a Breakfast Meal in Overweight and Obese Men and Women: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Zhu L, et al. Nutrients 2019, 11, 952; doi:10.3390/nu11050952.
Conclusions: Replacing carbohydrates in a high-carbohydrate meal with avocado-derived fat-fiber combination increased feelings of satiety mediated primarily by PYY [peptide YY] vs. insulin. These findings may have important implications for addressing appetite management and metabolic concerns.
Funding: This research was supported by the Hass Avocado Board, Irvine, CA, USA.
Comment: Why does the Hass Avocado Board fund studies like this? Because it generates headlines like this one: “Study finds avocados curb appetite and help with weight loss.”
Oops. This is not what the study actually found. As I learned from Obesity and Energetics Offerings (an exceptionally useful weekly compendium of articles having to do with energy balance), the discrepancy between what the study’s findings and what got reported merited its inclusion in OEO’s “Headline vs. Study” category.
- Headline: Study finds avocados curb appetite and help with weight loss.
- Study: This was a 6-hour RCT [randomized clinical trial] demonstrating effects on short-term reports of hunger – neither effects on actual food intake nor on body weight were studied.
Sponsored research is often about headlines, not science.
It’s also about advertising. Here’s an ad that the Hass Avocado people sent out to all members of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Although the Academy noted this was an advertisement, here’s what it looked like (thanks to my colleague Lisa Sasson for sending):
I love avocados but wish the Hass people would stick with how delicious they are and fund research on something more useful, like resistance to pests or climate change, maybe.
No such luck. Here’s the request for proposals I just received:
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