I found this at a Pathologist's Website... Thought it may be interesting...
He is talking about the nutrition lecture, Here is an excerpt
http://www.pathguy.com/lectures/nutr.htm
http://www.pathguy.com
"This unit should upset you.
Your patients have plenty of good questions about food and disease. There are more fads and nonsense about "nutrition" than about any other health subject, and surprisingly, there are still some basic "unknowns". Any study involving nutrition is "news", and is immediately distorted in the media, ultimately hurting the credibility of science.
For example... In my 20-plus years as a medical school teacher, I have never taught (or believed) that fat / saturated fat in the diet is "bad". Nor, despite decades of trying, is there any hard evidence that this is true. How this longstanding crock was perpetrated on the public:
Science 291: 2536, 2001.
I have watched "official" recommendations for a "healthy diet" change from "the four basic food groups" (promoted by the dairy industry) to today's "food guide pyramid" (definitions of what a "serving" is vary by over 100% from agency to agency, and the recommendation to limit animal protein is obviously politics rather than science).
We have far more food in the U.S. than we need, and enough micronutrients.
With the welfare cutbacks of the mid-1990's, hunger began prompting more of the poor to seek hospital admission. The authors of the major study concluded that if you have an income of less than $10,000 or were on drugs, you might not always have enough to eat
(JAMA 279: 1211, 1998). Similarly, poor diabetics getting sick from skipping meals is becoming much more common (JAMA, same source).
You will have to decide for yourself about the ethics of using nutritional supplements (even as placebos) in the absence of controlled studies demonstrating, or a clear theoretical model explaining, their benefits.
Many of your patients are taking supplements, known or unknown to you. ("Americans have the most expensive urine in the world.") Your lecturer is undecided on the value of these. Anecdotal accounts are sometimes impressive, but series evidence for their value isn't impressive, and in any case, you shouldn't have to spend much money. See Geriatrics 47: 56, 1992, more recently JAMA 287: 3116 & 3127, 2002 found only theoretical reasons to supplement ($10/year is plenty despite all the hype that this article generated). A new placebo-controlled study finally found some benefit in healthy folks and especially in diabetics (Ann. Int. Med. 138: 365, 2003). The riddle is to find the particular patient whose health will be improved by a particular nutritional supplement. Keep your eyes and ears open. "
I was wondering if anyone had Medline access to check up on the bold sources he sited in this excerpt...
Thanks
Korry
Pathologist Website
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