Freelance Medical Writer, West Lafayette, IN, USA.
Director of Nutrition, Avocado Nutrition Center, Mission Viejo, CA, USA.
Nutr J. 2017 Aug 30;16(1):53. doi: 10.1186/s12937-017-0271-4.
Consumers are often confused about nutrition research findings and recommendations. As content experts, it is essential that nutrition scientists communicate effectively. A case-study of the history of dietary fat science and recommendations is presented, summarizing presentations from an Experimental Biology Symposium that addressed techniques for effective scientific communication and used the scientific discourse of public understanding of dietary fats and health as an example of challenges in scientific communication. Decades of dietary recommendations have focused on balancing calorie intake and energy expenditure and decreasing fat. Reducing saturated fat has been a cornerstone of dietary recommendations for cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk reduction. However, evidence from observational studies and randomized clinical trials demonstrates that replacing saturated fat with carbohydrates, specifically refined, has no benefit on CVD risk, while substituting polyunsaturated fats for either saturated fat or carbohydrate reduces risk. A significant body of research supports the unique health benefits of dietary patterns and foods that contain plant and marine sources of unsaturated fats. Yet, after decades of focus on low-fat diets, many consumers, food manufacturers, and restauranteurs remain confused about the role of dietary fats on disease risk and sources of healthy fats. Shifting dietary recommendations to focus on food-based dietary patterns would facilitate translation to the public and potentially remedy widespread misperceptions about what constitutes a healthful dietary pattern.
消费者通常对营养研究结果和建议感到困惑。作为内容专家，营养科学家必须进行有效的沟通。本文通过对饮食脂肪科学和建议的历史进行案例研究，总结了一个实验生物学研讨会的演讲，该研讨会探讨了有效的科学交流技巧，并以公众对饮食脂肪和健康的理解的科学论述为例，说明了科学交流中的挑战。几十年来，饮食建议一直侧重于平衡热量摄入和能量消耗以及减少脂肪。减少饱和脂肪一直是降低心血管疾病 (CVD) 风险饮食建议的基石。然而，观察性研究和随机临床试验的证据表明，用碳水化合物（特别是精制碳水化合物）代替饱和脂肪对 CVD 风险没有益处，而用多不饱和脂肪代替饱和脂肪或碳水化合物则可以降低风险。大量研究支持含有植物和海洋来源不饱和脂肪的饮食模式和食物对健康的独特益处。然而，经过几十年的低脂饮食研究，许多消费者、食品制造商和餐馆老板仍然对饮食脂肪在疾病风险和健康脂肪来源方面的作用感到困惑。将饮食建议转向以食物为基础的饮食模式，将有助于向公众传播信息，并可能纠正对健康饮食模式构成的广泛误解。
