Ep. 283: Can we trust public information about food and diet?
Guest: Dr. Chana Davis, FueledByScience.com
Coffee is good for you. No wait, it’s bad for you.
Red wine? Well yes, it’s good for you. No, it’s not! Yes it is! Everywhere you look, there is a new study, a new opinion and a new fad about health – so many of them that it is extremely difficult to know which study or person you can trust.
Dr Chana Davis says, “You need to be very careful about whom you trust. Check the source, check the funder and determine if the research is peer reviewed.” Davis goes on to suggest that you double-check the findings: “Who else agrees? Does the WHO agree? What about the Canada Food Guide? And what does Pubmed.gov have to say?”
It’s easy to get swept up in the hype around diets. Your aunt, your uncle, and your mother’s best friend may all have lost weight on a low carb or high protein diet. Davis says, “While that may be true, you don’t know why. It may have been strict adherence to the plan. It could have been their particular metabolic make up.” In other words, anecdotal evidence isn’t enough to make an informed decision about a diet.
We invited Dr Davis to join us for a Conversation That Matters about where to find trustworthy information – one place for sure is on her new video podcast show Get Real Health on YouTube.
Dr Davis also suggests you check in with these organizations.
Disease organizations (like Diabetes Canada, Diabetes UK, Heart & Stroke Foundation)
Clinical care organizations (e.g. Mayo Clinic, Harvard Health)
Public health organizations (e.g The World Health Organization, UK National Health Services)
Dr Chana Davis obtained her PhD in genetics from Stanford University, and spent the first decade of her career in cancer research and personalized medicine (https://www.gene.com / https://www.genomebc.ca / https://www.canaryfoundation.org ).
In 2018, she founded Fueled by Science as a platform to help others get science-based answers to questions about diet and health. Check it out at https://fueledbyscience.com or search @fueledbyscience on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
