Women's Health Initiative Study Shows Modest Diet Changes Yield Modest Results
On February 8, 2006, the Journal of the American Medical Association published
three articles reporting the results of the Women’s Health
Initiative (WHI) Dietary Modification Trial. The study included
48,835 women, and tested a diet that aimed to reduce fat to 20
percent of energy and increase vegetable and fruit consumption.
After 8.1 years of follow-up, the cardiovascular effects of the
diet change were minimal. Low density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad”)
cholesterol fell 2.7 mg/dL and the risk of coronary heart disease
fell by 3 percent while risk of all cardiovascular disease (including
stroke and coronary heart disease) fell by 2 percent. Neither result
was statistically significant.1
For breast cancer, risk was 9 percent lower in the intervention
group, although this result did not reach statistical significance.
One exception was for progesterone-receptor-negative tumors, for
which the risk decreased by 24 percent.2
For colon cancer, the risk of incidence decreased by 3 percent
with a 9 percent decreased incidence of polyps (which are often
precursors to cancer).3
Some have taken the result to be a setback for low-fat diet advocates.
However, the study confirms the findings of several others: Modest
dietary changes yield modest results.
The WHI diet is reminiscent of the dietary changes advocated by
the National Cholesterol Education Program, a dietary shift that
reduces fat to no more than 30 percent of calories, with less than
7 percent of calories from saturated fat and less than 200 milligrams
of cholesterol per day. White meat is favored over red meat, but
the diet includes as much as six ounces of meat per day. This diet
has been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol concentrations by only
about 5 percent.4
Diets that go further achieve far better results. Studies with
vegetarian diets have shown LDL reductions of approximately 15
to 20 percent.5,6
Moreover, the WHI diet yielded poor compliance. While the low-fat
group was to have a total fat intake of 20 percent of calories,
the group averaged 24 percent after the first year and 29 percent
by the study’s end. For comparison, the average American
consumes about 33 percent of calories from fat (NHANES III, 2000);
little difference from the WHI intervention.
Dramatic differences in cancer risk have been noted in international
comparisons where dietary differences were far greater than those
in the WHI.
The flaw was in the diet design. By attempting to construct a “low-fat” diet
that included animal products, the researchers were left with an
impossible challenge. The leanest beef derives about 28 percent
of its calories from fat. The leanest chicken isn’t much
better at 23 percent fat, and even low-fat milk ranges from 24
to 35 percent total fat. Fish can vary in fat content, but all
have cholesterol and more fat than is found in most foods from
plants.
The women participants were asked to reduce fat to 20 percent
at which level “it was presumed that . . . intake of saturated
fat would also be reduced.” However, their intake of red
meat, fish and poultry, the major sources of saturated fat and
cholesterol in the standard American diet, remained nearly unchanged.
A growing body of scientific evidence has shown that people on
low-fat, plant-based diets have dramatically lower rates of cancer,
heart disease, and other chronic illnesses than meat eaters. And
while a modestly low-fat diet will yield modest results, a truly
low-fat diet—that is, a vegan diet, without added fat—can
be an effective and powerful tool for reducing cancer and heart
disease risk.
Posted 02/19/06
References
1. Howard BV, Van Horn L, Hsia J, et al. Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of cardiovascular disease: The Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial. JAMA. 2006 Feb 8;295(6):655-66.
2. Howard BV, Van Horn L, Hsia J, et al. Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of invasive breast cancer: the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial. JAMA. 2006 Feb 8;295(6):629-42.
3. Howard BV, Van Horn L, Hsia J, et al. Low-fat dietary pattern and risk of colorectal cancer: the Women's Health Initiative Randomized Controlled Dietary Modification Trial. JAMA. 2006 Feb 8;295(6):643-54.
4. Hunninghake DB, Stein EA, Dujovne CA. The efficacy of intensive dietary therapy alone or combined with lovastatin in outpatients with hypercholesterolemia. N Engl J Med. 1993;328:1213-9.
5. Ornish D, Scherwitz LW, Billings JH, Brown SE, Gould KL, Merritt TA, Sparler S, Armstrong WT, Ports TA, Kirkeeide R, Hogeboom C, Brand RJ. Intensive lifestyle changes for reversal of coronary heart disease. JAMA. 1998;280:2001-7.
6. Barnard ND, Scialli AR, Bertron P, Hurlock D, Edmonds K, Talev L. Effectiveness of a low-fat vegetarian diet in altering serum lipids in healthy premenopausal women. Am J Cardiol. 2000;85:969-72.
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