The FastDay Forum

this is a great article on how scientists can get it wrong but then keep getting it wrong!

http://gu.com/p/4t6xc/sbl

Very interesting, @michael999, thanks for posting. I have been in the health sevice as a nurse/midwife since leaving school in 1980 and have worked alongside many dietitians during that time - I can only remember two who had a healthy looking body shape, all the others appeared to be obese, or even morbidly obese in a few cases. I used to feel so embarrassed sitting with patients being lectured on how to eat healthily by somebody obviously fatter than they were.....I now realise they were probably just following their own advice handed down from on high - relentlessly low fat, low cholesterol. One good thing about all health professionals having to go to university in the UK now is that even 18 year old students are made to look at and evaluate research for themselves, and they are encouraged to challenge anything they disagree with, even if a consultant is telling them something....Some of my collegues (in obstetrics/midwifery) really hate this and find it hugely challenging, but I think it's progress. I do hope there is the same level of debate amongst nutritian educators and their students.

My favorite points from the article:

" ... a remark made by the physicist Max Planck: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”


"In the past, we only had two sources of nutritional authority: our doctor and government officials. It was a system that worked well as long as the doctors and officials were informed by good science. But what happens if that cannot be relied on?"


"By opening the gates of publishing to all, the internet has flattened hierarchies everywhere they exist. We no longer live in a world in which elites of accredited experts are able to dominate conversations about complex or contested matters. Politicians cannot rely on the aura of office to persuade, newspapers struggle to assert the superior integrity of their stories. It is not clear that this change is, overall, a boon for the public realm. But in areas where experts have a track record of getting it wrong, it is hard to see how it could be worse. If ever there was a case that an information democracy, even a very messy one, is preferable to an information oligarchy, then the history of nutrition advice is it."



As has been individually proven here by many with intermittent fasting, it often pays to be a curious contrarian. To investigate, evaluate and experiment on your own to find what actually works (or doesn't work) for you.

Really nice article. Thank you so much for sharing.

A very good read! Thanks.