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Dietary Guidelines: From Dairies to Berries

The success story in Finland shows that science-based dietary guidelines can save millions of lives.

October 28, 2011 |
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Dietary Guidelines: From Dairies to Berries, 5.0 out of 5 based on 4 ratings

Sources Cited

Herman J. 2010. Saving U.S. Dietary Advice From Conflicts of Interest. Food and Drug Law Journal 65(20):285-316.

Ovcarov V, Bystrova V. Present trends in mortality in the age group 35–64 in selected developed countries between 1950–73. World Health Stat. Quart. 1978; 31: 208.

Keenan NL and KM Shaw. 2011. CDC Health Disparities and Inequalities Report — United States, 2011.

Pekka P, Pirjo P, Ulla U. Influencing public nutrition for non-communicable disease prevention: from community intervention to national programme--experiences from Finland. Public Health Nutr. 2002 Feb;5(1A):245-51.

Puska, P. Successful prevention of noncommunicable diseases: 25 year experiences with North Karelia Project in Finland. Public Health Medicine 2002; 4(1):5-7.

Puska P. 2011. Lessons from North Karelia. Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases Seminar, Helsinki.

Acknowledgements

Image thanks to foxypar4.

Transcript

Why do we care what the federal dietary guidelines say? Well, the Guidelines do ”direct how billions of dollars are spent in programs like the School Lunch Program, Breakfast Program, Food Stamps and WIC.” More importantly though, is their potential to turn this country’s health around.

After World War 2, Finland joined us in packing on the meat, eggs, and dairy. By the 1970’s, the mortality rate from heart disease of Finnish men was the highest in the world. They didn’t want to die, so they got serious. Heart disease is caused by high cholesterol, high cholesterol is caused by high saturated fat intake, so the main focus of the strategy was to reduce the high saturated fat intake. So that means cheese and chicken, cake and pork. So, a berry project was launched to help dairy farmers make a switch to berry farming. Whatever it tool And indeed, many farmers did switch from dairies to berries. They pitted villages against each other in friendly cholesterol-lowering competitions to see who could do best.

So how’d they do? On a population scale, even if mortality rates drop 5% you could still save thousands of lives. But remarkable changes took place…

An 80% drop in cardiac mortality across the entire country. “With greatly reduced cardiovascular and cancer mortality the all cause mortality has reduced about 45%, leading to greater life expectancy: approximately 7 years for men and 6 years for women.” That's what real dietary guidance can do.

Now vying for the world record heart disease diease, the United States of America.

To see any graphs, charts, graphics, images, and quotes to which Dr. Greger may be referring watch the above video. This is just an approximation of the audio contributed by Peter Mellor.

To help out on the site please email volunteer@nutritionfacts.org

Dr. Michael Greger

Doctor's Note

Please feel free to post any ask-the-doctor type questions here in the comments section and I’d be happy to try to answer them. Be sure to check out all the videos on dietary guidelines and heart health. And be sure not to miss Monday's blog post Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board accused of illegally deceptive claims. And as always, there are 1,449 subjects covered in my other videos–please feel free to explore them!

You may also be interested in checking out my related blog posts for more context: Eating To Extend Our Lifespan, Dietary Guideline Graphics: From the Food Pyramid to My Plate, Harvard’s Healthy Eating Plate, and PCRM’s Power Plate, and Stool Size and Breast Cancer Risk.

  • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/mgreger/ Michael Greger M.D.

    Please feel free to post any ask-the-doctor type questions here in the comments section and I’d be happy to try to answer them. Be sure to check out all the videos on dietary guidelines and heart health. And be sure not to miss Monday’s blog post Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board accused of illegally deceptive claims. And as always, there are 1,449 subjects covered in my other videos–please feel free to explore them!

  • diane.borders

    It would be helpful (although perhaps too time consuming?) if the Sources Cited section included the URL for each website featured in the associated nutritionfacts.org video. For example, after a bit of Googling, I discovered that “Table 3. Top Food Sources of Cholesterol Raising Fat among US Population, 2005-2006 NHANES” was part of the following:

    Sources of Saturated Fat, Stearic Acid, & Cholesterol Raising Fat among the US Population, 2005–06. Risk Factor Monitoring and Methods Branch Web site. Applied Research Program. National Cancer Institute. http://riskfactor.cancer.gov/diet/foodsources/sat_fat/. Updated December 21, 2010. Accessed November 1, 2011.

    Google turned up another goodie that looks very interesting: The website for Finland’s National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) enables users to download, free of charge, a 300-page textbook on the North Karelia Project. The publication was written by Puska Pekka et al and updated in 2009:
    THE NORTH KARELIA PROJECT: FROM NORTH KARELIA TO NATIONAL ACTION

    http://www.thl.fi/thl-client/pdfs/731beafd-b544-42b2-b853-baa87db6a046

    • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/mgreger/ Michael Greger M.D.

      What a great find on the textbook Diane! I always link to the sources used in the video in the Sources Cited section, but the comments section is a great place to post related resources like that one. Thank you so much, and if you find anything else on this topic or the other 1,000 topics covered on the site please plug them in!

  • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/jakeforrest/ JakeForrest

    Imagine if the United States adopted programs like this one!

    Incredible!

    • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/mgreger/ Michael Greger M.D.

      Shhh–us doctors would be out of a job! :) Seriously, though, there has been tremendous resistance within the medical profession to the use of diet to prevent, treat, and reverse chronic disease. See my video The Tomato Effect for one of the reasons why.

  • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/robzzz/ robzzz

    I can’t believe this! Found your site from the Forks Over Knives facebook posting and will definitely be checking back here daily. Why don’t we learn this stuff in school?

    • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/mgreger/ Michael Greger M.D.

      I love Forks Over Knives! I was so honored to be part of one of their early DC premieres. And you’re absolutely right, Robzzz. Turns out even medical students don’t get trained on this stuff in medical school. Check out my video Do doctors make the grade? and the other half dozen videos on the medical profession. So glad you found the site!

    • http://nutritionfacts.org/members/drdons/ DrDons

      There are many reasons but most academics are doing research in other areas and most clinical faculty don’t know the studies and aren’t experienced in treating patients with a “nutrition prescription”. John McDougall has the most experience and he is involved in training medical students at his clinic. I believe in addition to medical schools nutritional information needs to be provided as a regular part of K-12 education. Of course many schools get money from deals with corporations putting dispensers in their schools and serving harmful foods in their cafeterias. Hopefully things will improve.

  • Michael Greger M.D.
  • Lisa Marie

    Why is it never mentioned what the animals are fed? This directly impacts what type of fats are prevalent in their meat/dairy. And the fat quality, as we all know, has a direct effect on ones health. Most meat/dairy is raised on corn and soy and grain and that spells bad fat in the products from those animals and bad fat for us on our plate. If they are grass-fed the fat is very different and does not pose the heart disease and other health risks. These distinctions need to be noted more often – perhaps you can pave the way for better nutritional science?

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