Understanding the scientific value of “making America in good health again” (Maha) can be difficult. The Maha’s report – commanded by President Donald Trump and supervised by the Secretary of Health, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr – cited hundreds of sources, misinterpreted some and make others.
Some of Maha’s priorities are supported by a well -established science and deserve to be supported, according to a new University of Pennsylvania report Posted on Wednesday on the Food psychology and the consumer health laboratory website and obtained by Medical News MEDSCAPE For an exclusive review.
“We may not agree with everything that the Maha and (Kennedy) commission put forward,” said UPENN’s main author, Alyssa Moran, SCD, MPH, Director of Policy and Research Strategy at the Penn Center for Food and Nutrition Policy.
The Maha report cited a document written by epidemiologist Katherine Keyes, which she said that she had not author. And several other researchers said their results have been misinterpreted or misunderstood. Certain quotes of paper have been fully composed, including two articles investigating the prejudice of direct advertising to consumers. After reports on errors, the White House published an corrected version.
However, some of the Maha proposals echo the reforms Champion by public health experts.
The UPENN document highlights five of them: to eliminate toxic chemicals from food supply, prohibiting the public subsidy of sugary drinks and ultra -tangled food, protecting children from food -related diseases, reducing conflicts of interest for nutritional and – perhaps the most crucial for doctors – increase access to nutritional services to Healthcare.
“We somehow tell Maha’s caucus,” here is your food policy sheet, “said Moran.
Evidence behind Maha
For each of the identified areas, the UPENN report lists the actions proposed by Maha, the scientific evidence behind them and the policy that the authors believe to be the most effective to achieve this objective.
Maha and the evidence agree on several points – for example, Maha’s criticism of food ingredients “generally recognized” generally recognized “(fat). Research shows that because fatty allows food manufacturers to use unleashed ingredients for the FDA (as long as they believe that the safety standard is filled), the harmful ingredients find their way in American food supply; An example is Propylparaben, which can have an impact on male fertility and the number of sperm. Other Mahas claim that few nutrition experts would dispute, in particular that sugary drinks are addictive, the ultra -proposed food intake is linked to chronic conditions and that energy drinks are dangerous for children.
Maha also highlights the role of doctors in improving the nutrition of Americans. In addition to a set of proposed policies promoting access to nutritional support in health care, the UPENN report shows evidence in favor of the nutritional training requirement for doctors.
Research shows that medical advice can be particularly effective in helping patients manage cardiometabolic diseases, but many doctors lack confidence in their ability to give nutrition and diet advice. They may not have received a training: medical students are not required to take nutrition lessons.
“This data point has really stayed with me,” said Emily Broad Leib, co-author of the Upenn Report and director of the Harvard Law School and Cambridge, Massachusetts law law and political innovation. “Before entering the medical school, the majority of medical students think that food is important for health and, after graduating, the majority believe that food is not important work.”
To change this, the UPENN report suggests imposing nutrition courses on all doctors funded by the federal government or employees, and by granting subsidies to pay nutrition training to residents and medical students.
A page of the “War on Tobacco” game book
A unifying thread weaves all UPENN’s recommendations: regulation.
“Our key recommendations actually reflect strategies that have been very effective in reducing smoking by regulating the tobacco industry,” said Moran. “Each of the five areas that we have proposed has almost a direct correlation in the tobacco control zone.”
Jerold Mande, MPH, former Federal Policy Manager and one of the FDA strategy architects against tobacco, said that “levers” used historically to succeed in controlling tobacco were “funding and regulation”.
This may not be in accordance with the current administration to reduce regulations and reduce funding (including programs that provide food for children), but UPENN researchers believe that politics is the most effective – and perhaps the only way to considerably improve the regime and nutrition of Americans.
“It is impossible to have a significant impact on the modification of food supply without investing in regulatory agencies which oversee food supply – (the) FDA and USDA (American department of agriculture), in particular,” said Moran.
The tobacco model also helps to guarantee that, although each intervention is limited, they are not too fragmentary to revise the quality of the average American food. “What was so effective in the tobacco control movement is that we have really implemented this complete suite of policies,” said Moran. “This is exactly the attack we have to take with food.”
“There will not be a single policy that will magically improve healthy food access or change our diet overnight, but I think that by implementing this suite of complete policies, we can really reform the food system and make a real bump in the way people eat,” she said.
“A very sensible relationship”
The report has limits. None of the authors are experts in food production, including agriculture and transformation. For this reason, “this does not do justice to some of the reforms on the side of food production which, I think, are really important,” said Broad Leib.
Complicating questions is the lack of scientific rigor of the Maha report; In some respects, the UPENN report responds to this. “Even if we have the same objective and share the meaning (that) the food system is a problem and that we must solve it, I am really concerned about the lack of commitment to a solid and precise science,” said Broad Leib. This may “undermine” any progress.
Upenn researchers intentionally avoided the many proposals put forward by Kennedy who are not supported by science, choosing to rely on what is known to be effective.
For the most part, experts find merit in the UPENN newspaper. “This is a very sensitive relationship with many recommendations that echo previous work,” said Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, cardiologist and director of the Food Is Medicine Institute of Gerald J. of Tufts University and Dorothy R. Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy.
Mande described the newspaper as “formidable”, saying that he shows how the Maha report could benefit from the support of public health chiefs. “This is how public health should react to the report (Maha) and how I hope more will,” he said.