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The recent addition of trans fat information to the Nutrition Facts labels on food products, combined with news media reports and activists warnings, have brought these fats to the forefront of public concern.

In a national survey conducted in November 2005, 81 percent of a representative sample of U.S. consumers reported being aware of trans fats, and 54 percent indicated that they were trying to decrease their trans fat consumption (IFIC Foundation, 2006).

Putting the role of trans fatty acids (TFAs) into perspective can be difficult, both because of the intensity of the rhetoric surrounding them and because of widely varying claims about the extent of the health risk they pose.

Should American consumers believe the Food and...

A March 25, 2004 article by Denise Mann on WebMD.com about artificial sweeteners quotes ACSH's Dr. Ruth Kava:

"These products can be useful when used appropriately for people like diabetics who need to control their sugar intake and in overweight people," agrees Ruth Kava, PhD, RD, director of nutrition for the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH) in New York City.

Artificial sweeteners do not affect blood sugar levels, but some foods containing artificial sweeteners can still affect blood sugar because of other carbohydrates or proteins in these foods. In other words, while foods that...

We had a really bad flu season this year. The CDC just announced that about 80,000 Americans were killed.

To put that into perspective, that is roughly double the number of suicides and quadruple the number of homicides in recent years. In fact, the influenza death toll could be the highest we have seen in about 40 years.

It's not like we didn't warn you. H3N2 strains of influenza are really bad news, and it was precisely this type of flu virus that dominated the winter of 2017-18. That is why we (and all major public health agencies) beg and plead for people to get their flu...

Sometimes a study leaves you gobstruck – and not in a good way. An article in Circulation: Heart Failure looks at how dietary protein intake impacts the risk of heart failure. Basically, this is a study of 2441 Finnish men age 42 to 60 studied over a mean period of 22 years looking at the incidence of heart failure based on the amount of protein in their diet. Their finding

“In middle-aged men, higher protein intake was marginally associated with increased risk of HF (heart failure).”

It requires a great deal of spin to reach that conclusion. But let us look at two glaring misuses of the concept of breaking a problem down into its parts – reductionism. Reductionism is the basis for most science since so many factors can be involved, isolated them...

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 1.28.00 PMWe have perennially been on opposite sides of the table from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) on virtually every issue, for example, artificial sweeteners, trace chemicals, caramel coloring, Proposition 65, you name it.

But now we find ourselves in complete agreement: There is no reason for mandatory labels on GMO foods or products derived from them. Amen.

CSPI has held this position for some time. In 2013, Gregory Jaffe, their director of biotechnology, who was...

Screen Shot 2014-03-17 at 3.11.19 PMWe guess it would be too much to hope for: finding two sound-science-based stories in the New York Times on the same day. While one did alert readers to a widely circulated weight-loss scam, the writer of a Health column, of all things, went out of her way to disseminate specious concerns about GMO ingredients in food as a platform for endorsingGMO-labeling (although the column did refer to the official FDA position, which in summary says, nothing to worry about.).

The first, an...

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Why wouldn t consumers want to embrace a technology that could: Reduce the use of pesticides on crops; provide crops resistant to drought and high salinity in soil; enhance the nutritional value of foods; improve disease resistance in crops; prevent expansion of agriculture into marginal lands; allow the use of soil-conserving methods; and reduce the anti-nutrients in staple crops?

There s a one word answer to the query: Fear.

In a...

School Food - Chicken NuggetsIn an encouraging new study released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week, schools across the country seem to be improving in the areas of nutrition, exercise and tobacco policies. The number of school districts requiring physical education programs in elementary schools has increased since 2000. Furthermore,...

For the first time, FDA commissioner Dr. Margaret Hamburg is publicly addressing the growing problem of monitoring the safety of imported food, drugs, and medical devices in her new report, Pathway to Global Safety and Quality. Currently, more than 80 percent of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) sold in the U.S. are manufactured overseas, and in 2008, government officials estimated it would take the FDA 13 years to inspect each foreign drug manufacturing plant.

Dr. Hamburg s report states that the safety of America s food and medical products remains under serious threat, and mentions just a few instances of the consequences of the agency s current lack of resources for...

The following letter first appeared on July 21, 2009 in Annals of Internal Medicine:
To the Editor:

The authors of the Perspective piece "Cholesterol Control Beyond the Clinic: New York City's Trans Fat Restriction" (Annals' July 21 issue) want to be congratulated for finding that their own regulatory approach has succeeded -- according to them. The NYC Dept. of Health passed a regulation restricting the use of trans-fats (TFAs) in chain restaurants, and the authors have discovered that -- lo and behold! -- this law is being obeyed.

But what have they accomplished in terms of public...