Lemons Into Lemonaide: A Lesson In Critical Thinking!
Yesterday I received a particularly nasty e-mail from an extremely irate visitor. It wasn’t anything I haven’t seen a zillion times before — the e-mail contained accusations of misleading the general public; it called me a liar (several times), and it used “UltimateFatBurner.com” in conjunction with the word “bullsh*t” several times.
Frankly, e-mails like this aren’t that uncommon. Sometimes, people get a little defensive when you “burst their bubbles” and explain — however gently, that what they believe has no basis in fact. So why am I bringing it up? Well…
My first inclination upon reading this complete load of tripe was to simply delete it. The e-mail address did not appear to be genuine and I have a hard time taking criticism from anyone who does not have the strength of conviction to post his/her real name and e-mail address to such comments. And since this seemed like more of a rant than anything else, it did not seem worthwhile to address any of the issues outlined since it seemed highly unlikely that I could dissuade this individual from her various conclusions.
Within a few moments however, I got to reflecting upon the discussions Elissa and I have had about critical thinking — specifically, the relative lack of it — especially when it pertains to diet products. This irate e-mail was a fantastic example of “non-critical” thinking. For instance…
When this person found that I disagreed with her preconceived notions of several elements of nutrition and diet advice and a couple of products to boot, she responded by calling me a liar. Again, not a big deal here — this happens often enough. What baffles me is that…
a) She seems to be willing to accept the word of those who support her position, despite the fact that these people’s positions are not supported by any real, scientific evidence.
b) She seems to be unable to comprehend that for either myself or Elissa to be able to make an authoritative statement about something, we need something other than “fairy dust” or “communications with the dead” to base our assumptions.
In other words, when either Elissa or I make statements on this web site, you’ll see the appropriate clinical reference that backs up our conclusion. Neither I or Elissa expect you to believe what we say just because we’re the people behind the words on UltimateFatBurner.com. The clinical references are there so you can verify for yourself that we’re not simply pulling this stuff out of thin air.
One of my statements that so enraged my guest was…
“A high protein diet is dangerous? There’s isn’t a single medical study indicating this the case.”
Again I was called a liar, and told there were hundreds of studies demonstrating a high protein diet (she didn’t define what constituted “high” exactly) is extremely dangerous (my visitor didn’t actually point me to these mysterious studies, however. Apparently using the word “studies” in a sentence is enough to validate any claim!).
But here’s the thing…
I didn’t come to the conclusion I did just to be obstinate and to ruin some-one’s day. Like everyone else, I too had heard that consuming too much protein was dangerous — but I’d never seen any actual proof. If the comment came from a registered dietitian or nutritionist, that seemed to be enough for most people.
Anyhow, when I did the research, I didn’t find any evidence that an increased protein intake posed any dangers to “normal” individuals not suffering from renal disease. In fact, I found the contrary (see Nutr Metab (Lond). 2005 Sep 20;2:25)…
“…we find no significant evidence for a detrimental effect of high protein intakes on kidney function in healthy persons after centuries of a high protein Western diet.”
One review (Contrib Nephrol. 2007;155:102-12) proposed…
“… that the concept that protein restricted diets decrease the risk of developing kidney disease in the general population is not supported by the scientific literature.
This one, which investigates a higher level of protein intake for athletes (see Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2006 Dec;31(6):647-54) indicated…
“…that higher protein diets have quite consistently been shown to result in greater weight loss, greater fat loss, and preservation of lean mass as compared with “lower” protein diets.”
There was no mention of decreased kidney function or other less beneficial results.
This one (see Am J Kidney Dis. 2004 Dec;44(6):950-62) discussing the possibility of a high protein diet on kidney function states…
“…although there are no clear renal-related contraindications to HP (high protein) diets in individuals with healthy kidney function, the theoretical risks should be reviewed carefully with the patient.”
It’s upon this information that I based my statement. Had I found studies to the contrary, I would have come to a completely different conclusion. This is not being “pro” or “con” protein… it’s simply reporting the facts (6-10,000 years ago, before humans learned the basics of agriculture, we were hunter-gatherers. If you happened to live in a northern climate, your consumption of fruits and vegetables and roots would be limited by the short growing season — there would be no veggies tracked in from California in winter — and you’d be competing with birds and other animals for a limited supply of the stuff. Basically if you didn’t eat protein and fat — from fish and game — you didn’t survive. And if consuming more than the US RDA of protein were really all that dangerous, we certainly wouldn’t be here today!).
Of course, there are issues when increased protein is NOT a good thing — anyone with less than optimal kidney function needs to be concerned about increasing their protein intake without first consulting with a medical professional. And as Elissa points out in this blog post, diets rich in cereals/grains, animal proteins, and salt (like the typical North American diet) can condition known as chronic metabolic acidosis (CMA). That aside, the available evidence indicates an elevated protein consumption is not dangerous.
How can it be then, that I am a liar, misleading my audience and leading the dieting world astray?
Critical thinking may be difficult on occasion, because it can threaten what you hold near and dear.
And that goes for me too — I have to be willing to revise my conclusions, should someone be able to provide compelling data that refutes any one of my conclusions. And yes… I welcome that. In fact, when anyone writes me to disagree about some review or another, I always say the same thing…
“Sure, I’d love to revise my article top include any relevant clinical data which I may have missed. Just send it along.”
Sometimes they do. Occasionally there is a brand new study that isn’t widely available yet, sometimes I miss something — heck, I’m only human — but the bottom line is, I have to be willing to accept and present contradicting evidence (and it needs to be evidence mind you) should it exist.
Anyhow, if you’re still with me, here’s what I’m getting at…
When it comes to the supplement world, all critical thinking really means is that you must take everything with a grain of salt, evaluating every “statement” for credibility and truth. There are, of course, numerous reasons why any one will maintain any position. The most obvious is to sell you something. So always ask yourself, especially when a definitive statement is made…
1) Upon what information is this based?
2) Is the author using his/her credentials to make sweeping claims without the appropriate references? Plenty of people are willing to believe anything if its presented by a doctor, or a medical or nutritional professional.
3) If clinical references are used, are they relevant? Are they performed and published in western journals? Is there a large body of work that corroborate the author’s conclusion’s or simply a few (even a single) small studies?
4) Does the author “cherry-pick” select references to support his/her conclusions, while ignoring ones that present contradictory evidence?
As you see, critical thinking is a lot more work too, since you really need to dig to see if you can find any real information that supports one conclusion or another.
But in order to make informed decisions and have a valid opinion, it needs to be done.
May 24, 2008
Well said.
What gets me, however, is why someone would react this way? Simply put: it’s nuts. I’ve come across – and documented – all sorts of BS and outright falsehoods on various “health” websites and supplement ads, yet it would never occur to me to send anonymous (or pseudonymous) hate mail to those responsible.
If it’s an issue that’s genuinely worth getting upset about, then I’ll document it – and more importantly – put my name to it, just the way I do here. It’s just as you put it: “strength of conviction.” I’m not going to slither to the attack: my words represent me, after all. I’d rather be wrong than be a coward.
But really, people like this need to get a grip: if you want to get your knickers in a twist about something, get upset about something serious – like war, homelessness, illiteracy, oppression, pollution, global climate change, racism, endangered species…take your pick. Lashing out over a difference of opinion on dietary protein, or whether a bottle of pills “works” is mental – if it enrages you this much, then you’re definitely not rowing with both oars in the water.
May 24, 2008
Just the past month I completed an introductory course to personal training hosted by a trainer at my gym with lots of certs, degrees, blah blah. The course was centered around the ACE manual which has lots of good information regarding exercise science and nutrition.
Organizations like ACE seem to still be in the dark ages on some matters of nutrition because they still adhere to the Federal Govt’s food pyramid and probably want to play it safe with the issues of liability even if they did know better.
Anyway this same old tale of eating more than so many grams of animal protein per meal being dangerous is right in the manual that many thousands of people are trusting as a gospel truth. Neither does the same organization idendity the benefits of EFAs as helping fight obesity. They just few fat cals as fat cals.
It helps explain why some may get so engraged about it because these manuals and programs don’t encourage taking a scientific approach to things. In other words, they want us to just wait till the next manual is released before we accept anything new.
May 24, 2008
Yep… the darn food pyramid. For many this darn thing is sacrosanct — as if handed down by Moses. Unfortunately, nutritional guidelines are as much determined by lobby groups and industry funded scientists than anything else…
http://www.pcrm.org/news/commentary030929.html
When nutritional guidelines are being determined by individuals with obvious financial ties to big sugar as well as the dairy, meat and processed food industry, how likely is it that any nutritional guidelines decided upon are an actual reflection of what we should really be eating?