A Clear Case Against Moderation
John McDougall, MD
In the early 1990s, the founders of the Women’s Health Initiative
(WHI) study were guests on my syndicated radio show. During these
interviews, and on many other occasions, I challenged Ernst Wynder,
MD (now deceased) and Rowan Chlebowski, MD to teach the women in
their study a meaningful diet—specifically, a very low-fat,
plant-food-based, McDougall-type diet—so that when the day comes
that the results are published the real benefits of healthy eating
will be shown. Both insisted that the “moderate diet” they were
using would be adequate. Twelve years and $415 million later, on
Wednesday, February 8, 2006, news headlines about their research
findings showed them wrong. Please understand that I take no joy in
being right; rather I am saddened because now we all must live with
the incorrect conclusions that diet cannot prevent cancer or heart
disease.
The truth is, this study of nearly 50,000 older women, ages 50 to
79 years, has only reinforced the well-known fact that “skinning
your chicken” and “drinking low-fat milk” is inconsequential. The
Women’s Health Initiative was not the first, nor is it likely to be
the last, study to prove that what most people consider to be a
“reasonable, moderate or prudent diet” is at best a trivial
improvement over the disease-causing, standard American diet.
Proof that the low-fat diet intervention used in this study was
ineffective is the report of an average of one pound (0.4 Kg) of
weight loss after 8 years of dieting (compared to those not
dieting). Furthermore, the women’s blood levels of cholesterol and
triglycerides, and blood pressures hardly changed after all that
effort. Their dietary histories revealed that even though the
low-fat diet group received “an intensive behavior modification
program that consisted of 18 group sessions in the first year and
quarterly maintenance sessions thereafter,” they continued to eat
nearly the same amount of fiber, protein, red meat, chicken, fish,
and grains. The addition of one more serving of fruits and
vegetables daily may have accounted for the 9% reduction in breast
cancer observed for the low-fat group.
People worldwide have been, and are still being, betrayed by
investigators who spend taxpayer’s dollars on useless dietary
research—and they should not be forgiven because they have always
known better. Since the 1950s studies have shown that the more
plant-foods, and less processed and animal foods, populations
consume, the less breast and colon cancer and heart disease they
will develop. Furthermore, there is no “safe threshold”—in other
words, the lower the fat intake, the less the cancer and heart
disease. In fact, long before the Women’s Health Initiative study
was conceived, Dr. Ernst Wynder had published extensively on the
benefits of the very-low fat (10%), almost vegetarian, Japanese diet
for prevention and treatment of breast cancer. So why was a
“moderate” diet, instead of the best one, tested?
My nearly 40 years of experience, working with hundreds of
influential doctors and scientists, leads me to believe they have a
very low opinion of patients and the public in general. They believe
we are too stupid and too disinterested in our own welfare to make
meaningful changes in our diet—specifically, to follow a plant-food
based diet. When I suggest such powerful dietary changes, they
respond with, “That’s unreasonable; no one will follow a vegetarian
diet.” Even if they were correct, you and I still deserve to know
the truth, so that this option for preventing illnesses and
premature death is available to us.
The Women’s Heath Initiative should have been remembered as the
study that inspired honesty in the scientific community and put an
end to ineffective research using a “sensible diet.” No longer
should the excuse that people won’t follow a truly healthy diet be
accepted—we who do so know better.
drmcdougall@drmcdougall.com
McDougall Wellness Center
P.O. Box 14039, Santa Rosa, CA 95402
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