all Walter Willett stories

Are Fat Calories More Fattening Than Carbs?

404132862 — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 10:54:07 -0400

Fatty foods feed heart attacks, researchers say

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 06:26:30 -0400

Hold the french fries, doughnuts, and cookies, and save as many as 228,000 heart attacks and deaths from heart disease. That's the message from a team of researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

"Given the 1.2 million annual [heart attacks] and deaths from coronary heart disease in the United States, near-elimination of industrially produced trans fats might avert between 72,000 and 228,000 coronary heart events each year," the researchers report. Trans fats are also thought to play a role in unexplained sudden deaths and diabetes.

The major sources of trans fats include deep-fried fast foods, bakery products, packaged snack foods, margarines, and crackers. French fries, breaded fish burgers, breaded chicken nuggets, Danish pastries, pies, doughnuts, and cookies are the big offenders. Hamburgers, steaks, lamb chops, and dairy products contain only small amounts of natural trans fats so they don't make the list of "worsts." "The presence of beneficial factors in dairy and these meats may balance the effects of the smaller amount of trans fats they contain," according to Dariush Mozaffarian, lead author of the report that appears in the April 13, 2006, issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Ten to 19 percent of the coronary heart disease in the United States (120,000 to 228,000 heart attacks) could be averted by reducing the intake of trans fats, says Walter Willett, head of the research and Fredrick Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

According to the evidence that Mozaffarian, Willett, and their colleagues gathered from studies in the United States and Europe, the "adverse health effects of trans-fatty acids are far stronger on average than those of food contaminants or pesticide residues, which have in some cases received considerable attention. Furthermore, trans fats have no intrinsic health value above their calories."

The research team suggests that trans fats be reduced or eliminated from foods sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines. Opposing arguments from food manufacturers and restaurants maintain that this would raise costs and lower taste. Recent experiences in Europe indicate that such concerns are overstated, say the researchers. They mention Denmark as a prime example. In that country, all oils and fats used in locally made or imported foods must contain less than 2 percent of industrially produced trans fats.

Low-fat dairy may help reduce risk of type 2 diabetes

50443248 — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:52:45 -0400

The consumption of low-fat dairy foods may reduce men's risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to a study in the May 9 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. The report from researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), and Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) - the first large-scale, prospective examination of a relationship between dairy intake and diabetes risk - analyzes data from the HSPH-based Health Professionals Follow-Up Study.

Low-carb more effective than low-fat

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:32:39 -0400

A study put three groups of dieters on different regimens. They included a low-fat group, a low-carbohydrate group that ate the same number of calories, and a third group on a similar low-carbohydrate plan that included 300 extra calories a day. The low-carbohydrate dieters lost more weight than low-fat dieters despite eating 25,000 extra calories over a 12-week study period. The findings generated national attention after Penelope Greene, a visiting scholar in the Harvard School of Public Health's Nutrition Department, presented her research Oct. 13, 2003, at the annual meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity, in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Greene conducted the study with Walter Willett, Nutrition Department chair and Fredrick Stare Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition. Participants in all three groups lost weight, Greene said, with the low-fat group losing an average of 17 pounds and the low-carbohydrate group that ate the same number of calories losing 23 pounds. The biggest surprise, however, was that the low-carbohydrate dieters eating extra calories lost more than those on the low-fat diet. Participants in that low-carbohydrate group lost an average of 20 pounds.

New alternative to USDA dietary guidelines nearly twice as effective in reducing risk for major chronic disease

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:27:14 -0400

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health rigorously assessed the diets of more than 100,000 men and women and found that the reduction in risk was nearly twice as great for those whose diet met the new guidelines when compared to those whose eating patterns reflected the current USDA dietary guidelines. The findings appeared in the December 2002 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. "The current federal guidelines as displayed in the government food guide pyramid emphasizes large amounts of carbohydrates, doesn't make a distinction between types of fat or protein and lumps red meat, chicken, nuts and legumes together," said researcher Walter Willett, chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. "We developed a food guide pyramid based on the best available science and examined how people who followed it did over the next 10 to 15 years and we found that those who followed our guidelines had substantially reduced risks for major disease. These benefits, achieved by healthy dietary choices, are in addition to those from weight control and regular physical activity, which are also very important."

Nutrition book author Willett rebuilds USDA food pyramid

70652986 — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:15:23 -0400

For more than 20 years researchers at Harvard and elsewhere have been looking at the long-term health effects of eating certain types of foods. These researchers now have a good idea what's good for you and what's not, and in what quantities. However, that information is not reflected in the "food pyramid" produced by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The food pyramid is the government's official pronouncement about what Americans should eat to stay healthy. But according to Walter Willett, chair of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health, the government's pyramid is built on "shaky scientific ground." In a new book, Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy, Willett offers his own food pyramid, based on two decades of nutrition research. "The food pyramid is tremendously flawed," Willett says. "It says all fats are bad; all complex carbohydrates are good; all protein sources offer the same nutrition; and dairy should be eaten in high amounts. None of this is accurate."