Currently browsing posts about: RFK Jr

Seed oils, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr, are the unhealthiest ingredient in the food supply, not least because they are cheap and subsidized.

He also says they are one of the worst things you can eat.

Really?  I don’t think so, although seed oils, like everything else high in calories, are best consumed in moderation.

OK.  Here’s my understanding of what’s up with seed oils.

The basics

• They are essential in the human diet.  We require two fatty acids, linoleic (omega 6) and linolenic (omega 3), best obtained from seed oils.
• All food fats, seed oils no exception, are mixtures of saturated, unsaturated, and polyunsaturated fatty acids; only their proportions differ.
• All food oils have about 120 calories per tablespoon; this is why fat is fattening.
• Unsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids, when substituted for saturated fatty acids, reduce blood cholesterol levels and heart disease risk.

On this last point, a recent epidemiological study, Butter and Plant-Based Oils Intake and Mortality, found:

• Higher intakes of canola, soybean, and olive oils was associated with lower total mortality (the investigators couldn’t find enough respondents who ate safflower or corn oils to study the effects of those oils),
• Every 10-g/d increment in plant-based oils intake was associated with an 11% lower risk of cancer mortality and a 6% lower risk of CVD mortality.
• Substituting 10-g/d intake of total butter with an equivalent amount of total plant-based oils was associated with an estimated 17% reduction in total mortality  and a 17% reduction in cancer mortality.

Note: butter has a similar fatty acid composition to beef tallow.  If they had studied beef tallow, I would expect the results to be similar.

The arguments against seed oils hold grains of truth but require explanation [my comments]

• We eat too much of them and with too much fried food [no argument on this one]
• Consumption increased from 1980 to 2000 in parallel with the rise in obesity [true, but so did calories from all other sources, and this is just an association].
• Their ratio of omega-6 fatty acids to omega-3 fatty acids is much too high [true for some seed oils, but not for olive, soy, or canola].
• Seed oils are extracted using hexane, a dangerous organic solvent [true, but processing removes most of it, and only slight traces remain. Still, it would be good if chemists could find “greener” alternatives].
• Highly unsaturated seed oils can become rancid quickly [true, which is why they need to be stored in dark bottles and refrigerated].
• Omega-6 fatty acids cause inflammation [not really, if anything, they are slightly anti-inflammatory but not by much; omega-3 fatty acids are somewhat more anti-inflammatory than omega-6’s, but that doesn’t mean omega-6s are terrible.
• They have too many calories and are mainly in junk foods [true, hence moderation].

One additional issue: replacing them

The soybean industry,  clearly in its own self-interest, notes that a reduction in use of soybean, canola, corn, cottonseed, grapeseed, rice bran, safflower and sunflower oils, would likely see an increase in use of imported palm oil, which will raise food costs.

That’s not all it would do.  As I’ve written previously, palm oil raises so many issues that it’s hard to know where to begin: unhealthy degree of fat saturation, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, child labor, labor exploitation, adulteration, and criminal behavior, with everyone who consumes products made with palm oil wittingly or unwittingly complicit in these problems.  See, for example, Jocelyn Zuckerman’s Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything—and Endangered the World.

Comment

I cannot find convincing data that seed oils are any worse for health than any other high-calorie food, and the evidence for their benefits as compared to animal fats seems strong and consistent.  Getting them out of the food supply could help reduce calorie intake, but only if they are not replaced by other fats. Using seed oils is healthier than using more saturated fats.

But all of this has to be understood in the context of calories and everything else in the diet.  Seed oils on salads make a lot of sense.

If you are still worried, there is always olive oil.  Olives are a fruit, not a seed.

There is never a dull moment with Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s taking over the Department of Health and Human Services.

The Wall Street Journal announced this first: RFK Jr. Plans 10,000 Job Cuts in Major Restructuring of Health Department

Kennedy on Thursday said the agency would ax 10,000 full-time employees spread across agencies tasked with responding to disease outbreaks, approving new drugs, providing insurance for the poorest Americans and more. The cuts are in addition to roughly 10,000 employees who chose to leave the department through voluntary separation offers since President Trump took office, according to the department.

Together, the cuts would eliminate about one-quarter of a workforce that would shrink to 62,000. The department would lose five of its 10 regional offices.

Nutritionist that I am, I was shocked to see this headline: Remedy Supported by Kennedy Leaves Some Measles Patients More Ill

Physicians at Covenant Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, say they’ve now treated a handful of unvaccinated children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage.  Some of them had received unsafe doses of cod liver oil and other vitamin A supplements for several weeks in an attempt to prevent a measles infection.

Vitamin A toxicity?  Two reasons for my shock:

1. Vitamin a toxicity is extremely rare. Amounts typically in food never cause problems except when people eat polar bear or seal liver (or, in one instance, dog liver).  Even supplements cause only occasional cases.  The New York Times last reported a case of a child overdosing on vitamin A supplements in 1981.
2. These children were given way too much Vitamin A for way too long.

The deal on Vitamin A and measles

• Vitamin A will not prevent measles; vaccinations prevent measles.
• Vitamin A is, however, used to treat active cases of measles.
• The treatment involves two doses of vitamin A, one day apart.
• The amounts depend on the age of the child.

Rationale for use of Vitamin A to treat measles

• The World Health Organization recommends vitamin A for all children with acute measles, regardless of country of residence
• Children in the US can have low serum vitamin A concentrations
• Low vitamin A concentrations correlate with more severe measles disease
• Measles virus can deplete vitamin A stores
• In low- and middle-income countries, vitamin A is associated with decreased mortality and morbidity

Comment

• When RFK Jr recommends vitamin A for measles treatment, he is repeating standard advice.
• When he states or implies that vitamin A should be routinely supplemented, or used as a preventive measure for measles rather than vaccination, he puts sick children at serious risk of vitamin A overdose and toxicity.
• He should not recommend or imply that vitamin A is a substitute for measles vaccination.
• When he recommends vitamin A treatment for measles, he should insist on limiting supplements to two doses.
• Measles is preventable with vaccination.
• Vitamin A toxicity is preventable by avoiding supplements or using them only when needed and in appropriate amounts.
• Animal foods are the best sources of Vitamin A; brightly colored vegetables are the best sources of the Vitamin A precursor, beta-carotene.

References

• Vitamin A for treating measles in children
• Call to Action: Vitamin A for the Management of Measles in the United States
• Vitamin A Toxicity
• Overdose of Vitamin A Nearly Kills 3-Year-Old (1981)
• The vitamin A content and toxicity of bear and seal
• Death by Nutrition: How an Antarctic scientific expedition turned deadly thanks to an unlikely source: dog liver.

Food Fix broke the news: Jim Jones, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods , resigned saying that the firings of the staff he had recruited over the last year made his job impossible.

The New York Times quotes Jones. 

They’ve created a real pickle for themselves,” by cutting staff members working on a key priority, Mr. Jones said. “You just can’t do an assessment [of food additives] for free and you can’t ban chemicals by fiat.

But wait!  Maybe you can.

The FDA is an agency of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  And that brings me to its new secretary’s astonishing opening statement on his first day on the job.

I’m totally for making chronic disease a national priority for intervention, for getting conflicts of interest out of the FDA, and for focusing on child health.  And for Making America Healthy Again (MAHA).

I am eager to see what he does.

The FDA has long been plagued by cumbersome procedures (many of which do protect the public), conflicts of interest (especially the “revolving door” between the agency and industry), and apparent capture by the industries it is supposed to regulate.

Can RFK Jr address those problems in a way that promotes the public interest?  We shall see.

In the meantime, Jim Jones is being replaced by Kyle Diamantas, a lawyer from the large firm, Jones Day.

Not much is known about Mr. Diamantas, beyond his hunting turkeys with President Trump.

Food Fix quotes Vani Hari, the Food Babe as saying Diamantas “has a lot of Big Food contacts…I think that actually serves him. It puts him in an interesting position because he understands the stakeholders at play….I think that puts him in a good position to figure this out…He gets this issue.”

The nominee to be the new FDA Commissioner,  Martin Makary, has not yet been confirmed.

So much remains uncertain.  I am following all this with great interest.

Update on the chaos

The FDA has now rehired some of the people who were fired (particularly those supported by user fees).  Presumably, Jim Jones remains out.