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 Good Nutrition
In 2005, PCRM’s nutrition experts worked hard to educate
both the public and the medical profession, providing information
and cutting-edge scientific research on good nutrition. Amid alarming
obesity statistics and confusing fad diets, PCRM’s work helped
millions of individuals take control of their health.
Battling Childhood Obesity
With nearly a third of American children battling weight problems,
the issue of childhood obesity filled the news in 2005, and PCRM
tackled the problem head on—providing helpful information
for parents and educators about how a healthy vegetarian diet can
help kids slim down. A popular new PCRM public service announcement
featuring member doctors coming to the aid of a junk-food-eating
child pointed thousands of viewers to the PCRM Web site www.kidsgethealthy.org,
a clearinghouse of nutrition information.
 Continuing efforts to
encourage schools to offer more fruits, vegetables, and low-fat,
cholesterol-free vegetarian entrees, PCRM once again recognized
the nation’s healthiest school lunch programs
with the Golden Carrot Awards. PCRM gave the top award to Poughkeepsie
Day School in Poughkeepsie, New York, which offers a homemade vegan
soup each day.
Meanwhile, PCRM’s Cancer Project provided free vegetarian Food
for Life cooking classes for thousands of Americans.
Educating Medical Students and Other Physicians
One major project of 2005 was the development of PCRM’s Nutrition
Guide for Clinicians to arm future doctors with the most
current information on good nutrition. The guide will be distributed
free of charge to all medical students in the United States and
Canada in 2006. A comprehensive new Web site focused solely on
nutrition information will provide online support for medical
students, physicians, and patients.
PCRM’s top-notch nutrition
staff—which includes dietitians
Amber Green, R.D., Trulie Andkerberg-Nobis, M.S., R.D., Susan Levin,
M.S., R.D., Dulcie Ward, R.D., and associate director Tim Radak,
Dr. P.H., R.D.—represented PCRM at numerous medical and health
conferences in 2005, including those held by the American Academy
of Pediatrics, the American Academy of Family Physicians, and the
American Society of Preventive Oncology.
Exposing Food Industry Politics
 When food industry interests promoted some not-so-sound nutritional
advice to the American public this past year, PCRM was there to
set the record straight. In April, the U.S. Department of Agriculture
released a confusing new food guide dubbed “My Pyramid,” which,
despite the large amount of evidence of the harm these products
can cause, heavily promoted meat and dairy products. PCRM immediately
issued a statement criticizing the new guide, and PCRM nutrition
director Tim Radak, Dr.P.H., R.D., was quoted in The Wall Street
Journal and dozens of other media outlets.
PCRM also countered
an absurd dairy industry campaign that claims that yogurt, milk,
and cheese help dieters lose weight. In June, PCRM filed a lawsuit
against dairy giants—including Kraft
and Dannon—and the National Dairy Council and other industry
groups. The lawsuit accused the defendants of false advertising
for making claims about dairy and weight loss based on one study
by a researcher who had accepted more than $1.7 million in grants
from the National Dairy Council. Other researchers were unable
to confirm the findings, and some found that dairy products cause
weight gain. PCRM scored a victory for consumers when Kraft announced
in August it was pulling its weight-loss ads.
Advancing Clinical Nutrition Research
 Meanwhile,
PCRM continued to study the benefits of a low-fat vegetarian diet
in its own clinical research, publishing papers in respected journals,
and releasing a number of reports on the availability of healthy
food in various venues across America.
PCRM’s nutrition team spent much of the year collaborating
with the University of Toronto and George Washington University
on a landmark diabetes study funded by the National Institutes
of Health. The study tests whether a low-fat vegan diet helps patients
control their disease better than the omnivorous diet currently
recommended by the American Diabetes Association.
In September, the American Journal of Medicine published
the results of a PCRM clinical research study on weight loss. Conducted
in conjunction with the Georgetown University Hospital and George
Washington University, PCRM’s study showed that women on
a low-fat, high-carbohydrate vegan diet lost more weight than meat-eating
dieters who followed a more typical low-fat regimen.
Publishing
Ground-Breaking Clinical Reviews
In March, PCRM senior
nutrition scientist Amy Joy Lanou, Ph.D., published important new
findings about milk in the respected journal Pediatrics. Her
review of more than 50 published studies found that evidence does
not support the notion that drinking milk “builds strong
bones” or that milk is the best source of dietary calcium.
Another
major paper by PCRM, published in Nutrition Reviews,
showed that a vegetarian diet can prevent and regulate high blood
pressure.
In 2005, PCRM continued to survey venues across America
for healthy food choices. In addition to its annual review of
airport food, PCRM conducted a nationwide survey of 40 hospital
cafeterias and issued a report in September showing that while
more hospitals are offering fruit and whole-grain products, most
have a long way to go before their food can be considered health
promoting.
Given the chronic disease epidemics facing our country,
raising awareness about the links between diet and disease is
more important than ever. With our talented staff, dedicated
volunteers, and loyal supporters, PCRM is poised to help millions
more people discover the benefits of vegetarian diets.
Atkins Goes Bust
 When
Atkins Nutritionals declared bankruptcy in August, trade publications
credited PCRM’s outspoken public education efforts as a factor
in its demise. PCRM has been among the leading critics of the dangerous
meat-heavy, low-carb diet fad.
On PCRM’s AtkinsDietAlert.org Web
site, PCRM experts have described the dangers of low-carb diets
and offered a registry for dieters who felt the high-protein, low-carb
diets had damaged their health. In 2005, PCRM collaborated with
the Centers for Disease Control and the National Cancer Institute
to revamp the registry, gaining approval to use it as an official
research collection tool.
PCRM’s
legal team also pursued a major lawsuit, filed on behalf of a man
who developed heart disease after two years on the Atkins diet,
pushing for warning labels on low-carb products.
Got Warning Labels?
Milk
doesn’t do a body good—especially if you’re lactose
intolerant. To help educate the public that milk can cause serious
digestive illness, PCRM filed a class action lawsuit in October
in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, calling for
all milk cartons sold in D.C. to carry labels warning of milk’s
possible side effects.
 PCRM filed
the lawsuit on behalf of all D.C. residents against major grocery
stores and dairy producers, including Safeway, Giant of Maryland,
Stonyfield Farm, and Dean Foods. On behalf of 10 plaintiffs, including
a 7-year-old boy and a PCRM member physician, PCRM lawyers argued
that many people are not aware they are lactose intolerant and
often undergo extensive medical testing for infections and metabolic
problems, all of which would be unnecessary if the dairy industry
would provide simple warnings about milk’s unexpected effects.
Lactose intolerance is a normal condition found in approximately
75 percent of the world’s population, including 60 to 80
percent of African Americans, 50 to 80 percent of Latinos, and
at least 90 percent of Asian Americans and Native Americans. People
with lactose intolerance are—like all mammals—unable
to digest the milk sugar lactose after weaning. Symptoms include
diarrhea and severe abdominal pain.
The lawsuit
captured the media’s attention, including that of The
Washington Post and the Associated Press, which helped educate
hundreds of thousands of Americans about this issue.
PCRM Presents
Part of PCRM’s mission is to get the word out about new research on nutrition—not only to the public, but also to other scientists, doctors, and nutritionists. In 2005, PCRM experts shared ground-breaking information about the benefits of vegetarian diets with colleagues at professional conferences around the world.
In June, PCRM president Neal Barnard, M.D., delivered findings from a PCRM diabetes study at the American Diabetes Association in San Diego. Later that summer, he and Brie Turner-McGrievy, M.S., R.D., presented additional results from the study to the American Association of Diabetes Educators in Washington, D.C.
In the fall, associate director of nutrition Tim Radak, Dr.P.H., R.D., refuted the dairy industry’s false claim that milk consumption aids in weight loss at an important meeting of the North American Association for the Study of Obesity.
And in December, Dr. Barnard, along with senior nutrition scientist Amy Joy Lanou, Ph.D., and Jen Reilly, R.D., made presentations at the American Public Health Conference in Philadelphia on diabetes, soymilk acceptability, weight loss, and using the Internet to educate the public about dangers of high-protein diets.
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