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"Strong Consensus"

[edit]

@Psychologist Guy - you reverted my changes regarding with the edit message claiming: "lying about sources. The is a strong consensus that saturated fat increases risk of heart disease." I wanted us to discuss this here so we can deep dive into this further.

I noticed that you're particularly active in this article about reverting edits containing any criticism of the subject, for example reverting edits which link to the Seven Countries Study, etc. - so I wanted to outline in a bit more detail what is in the sources.

When you claim "lying about sources"; firstly, I'm not sure if you've read the cited work by Dr Andrew Jenkinson, "Why We Eat (Too Much): The New Science of Appetite" which certainly supports the claim there is not consensus on the topic, with Jenkinson going as far as to say that Keys "knew very well that it was not the whole truth" and his work caused harm - you can read so here: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QfimDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT110#v=onepage&q&f=false

The Hamley systematic review could not be more clear: "Available evidence from adequately controlled randomised controlled trials suggest replacing SFA with mostly n-6 PUFA is unlikely to reduce CHD events, CHD mortality or total mortality. The suggestion of benefits reported in earlier meta-analyses is due to the inclusion of inadequately controlled trials. These findings have implications for current dietary recommendations."

The systematic review by Clifton and Keogh states in the conclusion: "Reducing saturated fat and replacing it with carbohydrate will not lower CHD events ..." The BMJ systematic review states that RCT evidence "does not support the hypothesis that this translates to a lower risk of death from coronary heart disease or all causes." Etc, etc with other sources.

I'll revert your reversion for now in the event you've gained more understanding through reading the sources - but if this isn't sufficient to achieve consensus, why don't we remove any comment in the header about there being consensus for the research? E.g. We don't have on articles about gravity or even the COVID-19 vaccine a statement that there is consensus to support them. DrJoHeiter (talk) 23:15, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

You are citing unreliable low-carb/keto diet sources and conspiracy theories. One of your sources is Aseem Malhotra, the other James DiNcolantio a pseudoscientist. The other Steven Hamley a paleo diet advocate. The other is Uffe Ravnskov. Let's not pretend this is mainstream science.
Sorry but I have discussed all these sources many times already going back 5 years on Wikipedia. Your view is directly against scientific consensus. We have had extensive discussion about Hamley (he is a paleo diet advocate) and why this is an unreliable source for Wikipedia. Let's not be silly and cite Aseem Malhotra. The other references you mention have been discussed before on Wikipedia many times. Check the archives on the saturated fat talk-page. Let's not waste time going over the same old nonsense. Not one of your sources is reliable. Psychologist Guy (talk) 23:46, 30 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Science is done by empirically proving or disproving a hypothesis, not ad hominem attacks - these are systematic reviews in notable published peer-reviewed journals which are not retracted. Likewise, Dr Jenkinson (who I note you've not criticised in your comments) is a regulated medical professional, regulated by the General Medical Council, so if he was spreading conspiracy theories in his work - you could refer him to the UK regulator.
However, in any event - we can find even more examples which aren't cited in the original sources (these are literally the top results on Google Scholar for "saturated fat heart disease"):
- First argues SFA's are actually beneficial: "The metabolic aspects of SFAs are complex and non-uniform but existing evidence suggests that certain SFAs may confer measurable benefits for lipid profiles and CHD risk. For instance, several SFAs enhance the metabolism of high-density lipoprotein (HDL)" https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0033062015300256
- "Evidence for the effects of SFA consumption on vascular function, insulin resistance, diabetes, and stroke is mixed, with many studies showing no clear effects, highlighting a need for further investigation of these endpoints." https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11745-010-3393-4
- "The AHA stance regarding the strength of the evidence for the recommendation to limit SFAs for heart disease prevention may be overstated and in need of reevaluation." https://academic.oup.com/nutritionreviews/article/78/6/474/5678770
Are all these studies also created by conspiracy theorists and misinformation? Why haven't they been retracted in that case? Your argument seems to be that a majority of the scientific community is espousing misinformation, which in that case undermines your argument that there is consensus.
In any event - instead of adding new language, I'll remove any comment in the header about there being consensus for the research as I mentioned in my last message which I don't think you disagreed with in your reply and refer the matter to Wikipedia:Third opinion to we can achieve a consensus. DrJoHeiter (talk) 00:02, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Language in article made neutral for now to avoid language one way or another being used until consensus is reached.
Listed matter to: Wikipedia:Third_opinion#Active_disagreements DrJoHeiter (talk) 00:12, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
James DiNcolantio, Steven Hamley, Aseem Malhotra and Uffe Ravnskov are all low-carb/paleo advocates and at least 2 of them promote vaccine misinformation and have received funds from the beef industry. The sources you are citing are highly biased and do not reflect evidence-based medicine. Just because a handful of fringe figures from the low-carb community challenge mainstream science does not mean their material is valid. Your sources do not represent the scientific consensus. If you read the saturated fat article there are many references that show the consensus. All medical organizations and dietary guidelines around the world advise limiting saturated fat consumption to reduce disease risk. Several reviews between 2022 and 2023 were published on this. You cite a book by Andrew Jenkinson, this fails WP:MEDRS. Jenkinson is a surgeon, there is no evidence he specializes in nutrition. Just because someone has written a book does not automatically make it a reliable source. Psychologist Guy (talk) 03:02, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
@Psychologist Guy - with your repeated reverts of any attempt to reach consensus, I would ask that this does not become an edit war.
However, I note that Harvard University has issued criticism of the saturated fat guidance on these same grounds - going as far as to issue a press release on the matter quoting Dr. Walter Willett, Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2023/07/17/who-updated-guidelines-healthy-diets-total-fat/
I've provided you multiple systematic reviews which contradict the finding you're claiming there is strong consensus for - but here's another review: "Findings from the studies reviewed in this paper indicate that the consumption of SFA is not significantly associated with CVD risk, events, or mortality. Based on the scientific evidence, there is no scientific ground to demonize SFA as a cause of CVD. SFA naturally occurring in nutrient-dense foods can be safely included in the diet." https://academic.oup.com/eurjpc/article/29/18/2312/6691821
As far back as 1984, research has attributed 2,289 deaths in 15 years from the flawed research in the Seven Countries study: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6739443/
You're attempting to claim strong consensus in the introduction of an article whilst removing any dissenting opinion, despite universities like Harvard putting out press releases contradicting this and a majority of systematic reviews contradicting the evidence.
This isn't about just putting evidence one way or another in the article, you want to make a claim that there is strong consensus to back one view without dissenting opinion, which there is no secondary source to back. See Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine) for why secondary sources should be used. DrJoHeiter (talk) 08:50, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
Also, just with regards to your comment "have received funds from the beef industry" - you do understand that Ancel Keys himself received funding from the sugar industry, right? As the New York Times puts it: "The sugar industry paid scientists in the 1960s to play down the link between sugar and heart disease and promote saturated fat as the culprit instead, newly released historical documents show."
- https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html
- https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
- https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5099084/ DrJoHeiter (talk) 09:29, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
You mentioned the Harvard article (https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/2023/07/17/who-updated-guidelines-healthy-diets-total-fat/) as contradicting the WHO guideline's recommendation on saturated fat intake. I suspect that you may have misread that Harvard article, as it and Dr. Willett's criticism targeted WHO's recommendation on total fat intake.
In the Harvard article, Dr. Willett agreed with WHO's recommendation to emphasize unsaturated fat sources over saturated sources, explicitly even mentioning Ancel Keys' Mediterranean diet as healthy.
This Wiki article's intro text, for which references are being discussed, is about Ancel Keys' hypothesis. Per the current refs [1][2], that hypothesis does not seem to make claims about total fat intake.
Regardless, that Harvard article probably classifies as Expert opinion under WP:MEDASSESS, which would be inappropriate to use for countering its top-tier levels of evidence. Skoskav~enwiki (talk) 15:17, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any good academic or historical sources showing that Ancel Keys was funded by the sugar industry? Having spoke to historians about this I do not believe he was. None of the sources you cite make that claim, so that is WP:OR. There were very few nutritionists funded by the sugar industry in the 1960s. The most notable example is D. Mark Hegsted but it was a one off payment of $6,500 to publish a review. His critics forget to mention he also received funding from the dairy industry. Either way, that is all off topic here. There isn't any good evidence Keys was funded by the sugar industry. I am not sure why you have made that claim. Psychologist Guy (talk) 18:12, 26 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]
With regards to "world advise limiting saturated fat consumption to reduce disease risk" - note that this is not the claim that is being asserted as universally true. The actual claim from the article is "that replacing dietary saturated fat with polyunsaturated fat reduced cardiovascular heart disease". Also see public health advice in countries like Greece. DrJoHeiter (talk) 10:17, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
  • The reviews you are citing have all been cited before on the saturated fat talk-page, they are all low-carb authors. There was a strong consensus not the include these sources on Wikipedia they do not reflect the mainstream scientific consensus and are heavily biased. Many of these reviews you are citing are funded by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association. We do not cite industry funded research on Wikipedia. We have discussed your sources going back 5 years, nothing you have added is new, I have literally spent hours in the past discussing these sources. You are now citing Robert Lustig, Nina Teicholz, Jeff Volek of Atkins diet fame, Ronald Krauss, Zoë Harcombe and James DiNicolantonio. All are low-carb high fat influencers, heavily industry funded. You are unable to show a neutral review.
  • This review you cited [1] is not a reliable source. It was funded by Nina Teicholz's Nutrition Coalition organization. It was also funded by National Cattlemen’s Beef Association/North Dakota Beef Council.
  • You are destroying this article with entirely unreliable content from low-carb conspiracy theorists and other unreliable sources that fail WP:MEDRS. Psychologist Guy (talk) 13:29, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
    I'm disengaging with this discussion here until a third-opinion is obtained as you aren't keen to engage in good faith discussion (by attacking the numerous sources which disagree with you with ad hominem attacks) and seem keen to have an edit war. I've listed the edit war on Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. DrJoHeiter (talk) 13:40, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The sources you are citing are all low-carb authors and conspiracy theorists, at least 4 of your reviews were heavily industry funded by the beef industry, obviously you never read the disclosure section. You have not given a single reliable neutral source. Let me ask you something do you actually believe Aseem Malhotra and James DiNicolantonio are reliable sources to be citing on Wikipedia? You are greatly damaging this article with misinformation, this is not the purpose of Wikipedia. We need to keep content accurate and reliable. This biography of Ancel Keys isn't a place for you to promote your fringe views about nutrition in the lead. Psychologist Guy (talk) 13:47, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
attacking the numerous sources which disagree with you with ad hominem attacks voicing one's concerns about the quality of the sources is not an ad hominem attack, it's what we're supposed to do if we have reason to believe that they are not reliable. M.Bitton (talk) 14:45, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that DrJoHeiter is trying to say that reliability is a property of the source, not of the author of the source. The sources in the recent edits are here, with one easy dismissal:
Those should be the target of any criticism, not the authors. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:48, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
The sources that DrJoHeiter is citing have been discussed on Wikipedia heavily going back 4 years, I have spent many hours commenting about these papers and had many discussions about them. Every 6 months a new or sleeper account will turn up on the saturated fat talk-page and related articles like this claiming that the scientific consensus on saturated fat has shifted. This is not the case and it is always the same sources being cited. An example regarding all of the same sources DrJoHeiter mentions were put onto the WikiProject Medicine talk-page by another user here making the same arguments in 2021 [2]. There was a good consensus from experienced medical users not to include these studies written by the low-carb community. They cite the same papers every time.
Just a note about 32562735 (full paper on sciencedirect) [3] this study is heavily industry funded by the beef industry, this was mentioned on WikiProject Medicine. As @shibbolethink noted per WP:MEDRS#Sponsored_supplements we would not cite this source on Wikipedia. The paper was based on a workshop held by Nina Teicholz. DrJoHeiter says above "Ancel Keys himself received funding from the sugar industry", this is misinformation and no historian who has looked at the records would claim this. DrJoHeiter's own sources he links to do not even say this. Very few scientists involved in cholesterol research were funded by the sugar industry in the 1960s or 1970s, the only example his sources mention is D. Mark Hegsted (this was a one-off payment in 1965) but this is off-topic here. I don't think we should be using these talk-pages for cholesterol wars. I understand the low-carb community dislike Keys but there is no reason to add all these sources in the lead that are a minority view. The medical guidelines are very clear about this topic. Psychologist Guy (talk) 17:58, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

3OR request declined. There are already more than two opinions. Polyamorph (talk) 15:52, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]

  • Saw this mentioned at WP:FT/N. In my view we do need to say something about the common medical org view on this (which broadly, yes, does seem to be that high saturated fat intake is bad for CVD risk). There may be room for workshopping wording. We might also say that more recent research has raised concerns about the quality of the underlying research and the magnitude of effect, maybe citing PMID:37777760, although this is getting off topic maybe for a biography. The key (hah!) point is, whether we like it or not, per that 2023 source:

    Reducing dietary fat intake, often targeted specifically to SFA, has been the orthodox position in the nutrition community since the 1950s following the Seven Country Study and the 'diet-heart hypothesis'.

    That is precisely what is so notable about Keys. This is not the place to argue about the subsequent science. Bon courage (talk) 16:27, 31 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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