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: Walnuts and cognitive decline
The study: Investigating walnut consumption and cognitive trajectories in a representative sample of older US adults. Nicholas J. Bishop and Krystle E. Zuniga. Public Health Nutrition , Volume 24 , Issue 7 , May 2021 , pp. 1741 – 1752.
Purpose: To estimate the association between whole walnut intake and cognitive change in a sample of 3632 US adults aged 65 years and older.
Method: This was a secondary analysis of dietary data and health outcome from the Health and Retirement Study and Health Care and Nutrition Study.
Conclusions: “We identified an association between walnut consumption and cognitive function in older adults, although we did not find that walnut consumption was protective against age-related cognitive decline.”
Financial support: This research was funded by the California Walnut Commission.
Comment: Eating walnuts tracks with cognitive function in this sample, but has no particular effect on it. As I read them, the conclusions put a positive spin on a null finding, a classic example of “interpretation bias.” The Walnut Commission paid for the study and this interpretation helps to sell walnuts. I think walnuts are great but wish the California Walnut Commission would stay out of this kind of marketing research.
