As we anticipate the release of the finalized 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans in the coming days, controversy around the process continues to permeate media coverage and congressional activity. In our opinion, this is with good reason.
As The Sugar Association noted in comments to the secretaries of agriculture and health and human services, any dietary guidance should be based on a robust evaluation of the totality of scientific evidence, as mandated by Congress in Public Law 101-445. We strongly contend that the recommendations on "added sugars" put forth in the Dietary Guidelines Advisory (DGAC) report released earlier this year did not meet these important scientific standards.
One major concern is the fact that the Nutrition Evidence Library review process was bypassed for three out of four research questions on "added sugars," resulting in a non‐existent protocol for evidence selection. It remains unclear how the DGAC determined which already-published reviews to include and exclude in the process. In a nutshell, the scientific basis for the DGAC’s recommendations was "cherry picked."
Despite a plethora of published data, the DGAC considered just four systematic reviews to address body weight. The two reviews indicating that "added sugars" do not uniquely impact body weight were thrown out with minimal or no explanation as to why.
This is just one example of the subjectivity used by the 2015 DGAC in choosing science to support its conclusions, and demonstrates the lack of transparency in the evidence selection process.
As we’ve stressed before, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans are too important not to get them right. We have seen changing scientific agreement and dietary guidance on other dietary targets over the years, i.e. dietary cholesterol (eggs) and fats. This shifting dietary guidance that targets basic staples of the American diet has an economic impact on farmers, food and beverage manufactures and ultimately causes consumer confusion and apathy. Further, it has done little to improve the health of Americans.
It is our hope that the Secretaries, in publishing the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, will adhere to the Congressional mandate that clearly requires dietary guidelines to be based solely on the preponderance of scientific information, which is not the case in the 2015 DGAC advisory report for "added sugars."
Source: www.sugar.org