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The Women's Health Initiative. What is on trial: nutrition and chronic disease? Or misinterpreted science, media havoc and the sound of silence from peers?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2007

Lauren Lissner ,
Lluis Serra Majem ,
Maria Daniel Vaz de Almeida ,
Christina Berg ,
Roger Hughes ,
Geoffrey Cannon ,
Inga Thorsdottir ,
John Kearney ,
Jan-Å Gustafsson  and
Joseph Rafter
...Show all authors
Lauren Lissner
Affiliation:
Department of Community Medicine andPublic Health Sahlgrenska Academy at Göteborg University Göteborg, Sweden
Lluis Serra Majem
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Sciences, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria de Gran Canariaand Sociedad Espanñla de Nutrición Comunitária (Spanish Society of Public Health Nutrition), Spain
Maria Daniel Vaz de Almeida
Affiliation:
Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences, University of Porto and Portuguese Society for Nutrition and Food Sciences Porto, Portugal
Christina Berg
Affiliation:
Department of Home Economics, Göteborg UniversityGöteborg, Sweden
Roger Hughes
Affiliation:
School of Public Health (Gold Coast), Griffith UniversityQueensland, Australia
Geoffrey Cannon
Affiliation:
World Health Policy Forum Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Inga Thorsdottir
Affiliation:
Unit for Nutrition Research, Landspitali-University Hospital andUniversity of Iceland, Reykjavik, Iceland
John Kearney
Affiliation:
Department of Biological Sciences, Dublin Institute of TechnologyDublin, Ireland
Jan-Å Gustafsson
Affiliation:
Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet Novum, Huddinge, Sweden
Joseph Rafter
Affiliation:
Department of Biosciences and Nutrition, Karolinska Institutet Novum, Huddinge, Sweden
Lbrahim Elmadfa
Affiliation:
Department of Nutritional Sciences, University of Vienna, Austria
Nick Kennedy
Affiliation:
Department of Clinical Medicine, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland
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Summary

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The first results of the Women's Health Initiative dietary intervention trial were published in the USA in February. This is a colossal intervention designed to see if diets lower in fat and higher in fruits, vegetables and grains than is usual in high-income countries reduce the incidence of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, heart disease and other chronic diseases, in women aged 50–79 years. As interpreted by US government media releases, the results were unimpressive. As interpreted by a global media blitz, the results indicate that food and nutrition has little or nothing to do with health and disease. But the trial was in key respects not reaching its aims, was methodologically controversial, and in any case has not produced the reported null results. What should the public health nutrition profession do about such messes?

Type
Invited Commentary
Information
Public Health Nutrition , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , April 2006 , pp. 269 - 272
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 2006

References

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