Nutrition Science Is Just Unlucky

The kind of skepticism that can help us from being misled by research with radical and bold claims on topics of nutrition and its health outcomes.

What is the perfect diet? How about keto or paleo? Vegan or carnivorous? It’s not that easy to answer. I doubt it is something we even have the answer for. The thing about nutrition is that it is extremely difficult to control diets for a significant period to note their effects. It’s even harder to monitor the consistency of nutrient composition of the same food at different times and places, not to forget about the tedious task of measuring the net weight (which can be either wet or dry weight). Even if all of this is taken care of, we need to understand that different people process the same food differently. There are just too many variables.

Many studies are done on a particular population, concentrated on a certain geographic location and supposedly consuming a particular type of diet. You can see how this hardly counts as scientific. It is merely self-reported information and holds very little value. It is not necessary that they may eat what and how much they say they eat. Another much greater problem arises when a type of diet is loosely characterized as something like ‘high fat’ or ‘high carbohydrate’. We don’t know what makes a diet high in a particular nutrient, and what’s the threshold for it to be considered so by the researcher. This fails to take into account other micronutrients as well.

Let’s come to the huge loophole of biases. A researcher with a preconceived notion about a particular topic is highly motivated to prove his view right. Which is mostly why he/she takes up that topic to research in the first place. Even though we are supposed to try to disprove our original hypothesis, it rarely happens in practice. This is known as confirmation bias. Most of the older studies had a lot of these, which accounts for studies being conducted in only those populations that proved their point. Data was perceived and analyzed in a way that would favor one’s argument. This is called selection bias.

Nutrition research is expensive and an ‘inconclusive result’ is a disappointing term and seldom attracts any sponsors and funding. Not many will be ready to fund a study if, in the end, more question marks are added to the existing doubts, even though it might have given us immense clarity and brought us closer to the truth. Very few understand that it takes a collection of studies to finally overcome the complexities of the interaction of foods with the human body. This might take years, maybe even decades.

Humans are imperfect, which doesn’t spare even highly educated researchers and scientists. With a topic as complex as nutrition, we are constantly being updated about even the basics of biochemistry. Numerous studies have been tremendously important for us and have been a turning point in our understanding, but not all of them have been brought to light and deserve a lot more recognition. In the end, we ought to realize that we should beware of bold claims and everything needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.