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From three perspectives-disease prevalence, medical care efficacy
and economics-we have a deeply troubled medical system. But I do
not do justice to this topic simply by recounting figures and statistics.
Many of us have spent awful times in hospitals or in nursing homes
watching a loved one succumb to disease. Perhaps you've been a patient
yourself and you know firsthand how poorly the system sometimes
functions. Isn't it paradoxical that the system that is supposed to heal us
too often hurts us?

     WORKING TO LESSEN CONFUSION
The American people need to know the truth. They need to know what
we have uncovered in our research. People need to know why we are
unnecessarily sick, why too many of us die early despite the billions
spent on research. The irony is that the solution is simple and inexpen-
sive . The answer to the American health crisis is the food that each of us
chooses to put in our mouths each day. It's as simple as that.
Although many of us think we're well informed on nutrition, we're
not. We tend to follow one faddish diet after another. We disdain satu-
rated fats, butter or carbohydrates, and then embrace vitamin E, calcium
supplements, aspirin or zinc and focus our energy and effort on extreme-
ly specific food components, as if this will unlock the secrets of health.
All too often, fancy outweighs fact. Perhaps you remember the protein
diet fad that gripped the country in the late 1970s. The promise was that
you could lose weight by replacing real food with a protein shake. In a
very short while, almost sixty women died from the diet. More recently
millions have adopted high-protein, high-fat diets based on books such
as Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, Protein Power and The South Beach
Diet. There is increasing evidence that these modem protein fads contin-
ue to inflict a great variety of dangerous health disorders. What we don't
know-what we don't understand-about nutrition can hurt us.
I've been wrestling with this public confusion for more than two de-
cades. In 1988, I was invited before the U.5. Senate Governmental Affairs
Committee, chaired by Senator John Glenn, to give my views on why the
public is so confused about diet and nutrition. After examining this issue
both before and since that testimony, I can confidently state that one of
the major sources of confusion is this: far too often, we scientists focus on
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details while ignoring the larger context. For example, we pin our efforts
and our hopes on one isolated nutrient at a time, whether it is vitamin A to
prevent cancer or vitamin E to prevent heart attacks. We oversimplify and
disregard the infinite complexity of nature. Often, investigating minute bio-
chemical parts of food and trying to reach broad conclusions about diet and
health leads to contradictory results. Contradictory results lead to confused
scientists and policy makers, and to an increasingly confused public.

     A DIFFERENT KIND OF PRESCRIPTION
Most of the authors of several best-selling "nutrition" books claim to be
researchers, but I am not aware that their "research" involves original,
professionally developed experimentation. That is, they have not de-
signed and conducted studies under the scrutiny of fellow colleagues or
peers. They have few or no publications in peer-reviewed scientific jour-
nals; they have virtually no formal training in nutritional science; they
belong to no professional research societies; they have not participated
as peer reviewers. They do, nonetheless, often develop very lucrative
projects and products that put money in their pockets while leaving the
reader with yet another short-lived and useless diet fad.
     If you are familiar with the "health" books at your nearby bookstore,
you have likely heard of Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution, The South Beach
Diet, Sugar Busters, The Zone or Eat Right for Your Type. These books
have made health information more confusing, more difficult to grasp
and ultimately more elusive. If you