Sponsored by
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Thursday, October 23
8-8:50am
Location: Casanova 601
Evidence-Based Nutrition and the Problem of Proof
The power of nutrition appears to lie in its ability to promote
health and reduce the risk of many chronic diseases, so preventive
nutrition should serve to increase the quality of life and decrease the
cost of health care. However, the requirement for proof demanded by the
guidelines for evidence-based medicine is increasingly in contrast to
the paradigm previously employed to substantiate the benefits of
nutritional interventions. For example, the randomized controlled
clinical trial is now the “gold standard” not only for establishing the
efficacy and safety of pharmacologic interventions but also for
recommending changes in diet and the use of dietary supplements.
However, the long latency and multifactorial causation of chronic
disease, the impossibility of a zero exposure to a nutrient (for a
placebo group), and the multiple thresholds for different actions of a
single nutrient in various tissues limit the value and the application
of randomized controlled trials to test nutrition hypotheses. New
methods are required to evaluate the totality of evidence-based
nutrition derived from basic, observational, and intervention research
approaches and to make scientific judgments on the benefits and risks of
dietary patterns and dietary supplements.
Speaker:
 Jeffrey Blumberg, Ph.D., FACN, CNS,
is a senior scientist and director of the Antioxidants Research
Laboratory at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on
Aging at Tufts University. Dr. Blumberg’s research efforts are focused
on the biochemical basis for the role of antioxidant nutrients and their
dietary requirements in health promotion and disease prevention during
the aging process via their modulation of oxidative stress status. Dr.
Blumberg is a professor in the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and
Policy at Tufts University. He also participates in activities relevant
to the incorporation of sound nutrition science into public health
policy and has served on committees of FDA, the World Health
Organization (WHO), Food and Agriculture Organization of the United
Nations, U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, and U.S. Olympic Committee. Dr.
Blumberg has published over 180 articles and currently serves on the
editorial board of several nutrition science journals.
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