BOSTON—The 2010 Dietary Guidelines released earlier this year represent a mix of progress and lost opportunities, according to a new editorial published in the New England Journal of Medicine by Harvard Nutrition researcher Dr. Walter Willett and Dr. David Ludwig of Children’s Hospital Boston.
They noted that although important progress has been made, Americans will need to rely on multiple sources for information about diet and health until the process of formulating the guidelines is fundamentally improved. They noted there are fundamental flaws in the process underlying guideline development, but these could largely be remedied by the following:
- Move primary responsibility for guideline development to the CDC or IOM, to avoid conflicts of interest at the USDA arising from its institutional mission to promote commodities.
- Provide the advisory committee with adequate funds to ensure a comprehensive scientific review.
- Regularly update nutrient DRIs (used to inform the dietary guidelines).
- Conduct all stages of guideline development in open meetings.
- Prepare public recommendations with direct input from advisory committee members.
- Base recommendations primarily on foods, not nutrients.
- Write guidelines that explicitly state which foods should be consumed less by Americans to reduce risk for chronic disease.
Click here to read the entire editorial
