000139 New Dietary Standards Target Fat

Washington - Nutrition experts rewriting the nation's dietary guidelines will likely specify for the first time who might benefit from moderate consumption of alcohol: middle-aged men and women.

The proposed new guidelines, expected to be made public soon by an 11-member advisory committee, also will tell Americans to cut down on foods rich in saturated fats such as meat and dairy products, according to a working draft of the standards.

They will include a change in wording intended to make it easier for consumers to adhere to the maximum fat intake - renaming the maximum as “moderate” in fat, instead of “low in fat, according to a working draft of the new standards.

The revised guidelines also will put more emphasis on eating whole grains, fruits and vegetables and will include a special section on food safety.

“These guidelines will be better than they have ever been,” Margo Wootan, a senior scientist with the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nutrition advocacy group, said Wednesday.

First published in 1980, the guidelines are revised every five years to reflect the latest developments in scientific research.

Federally funded nutrition programs, including school lunches and Meals on Wheels, are required to adhere to the recommendations, and they are also widely used by professionals and dietitians in advising consumers.

As for alcohol intake, the existing guideline says “moderate drinking is associated with a lower risk for coronary heart disease in some individuals.” The draft guideline specifies who those individuals are - men over 45 and women over 55 - and says there is “little health benefit for younger people.”

Moderate drinking is defined as one drink a day for women and no more than two daily for men.

The current guidelines on fat recommend that people follow a diet that is low in total fat. The new recommendation is for a diet that is “moderate in total fat,” but low in saturated fat and cholesterol.

The recommended maximum fat intake will not change; it will remain 30% of total calories, or 65 grams a day in a 2,000 calorie diet.

Research by the food industry indicates consumers are put off by the term low-fat and see a moderate-fat diet as easier to follow, even if the fat content is the same.

“The goal is not to get people to eat no fat,” said Susan Borra, a dietitian with the International Food Information Council, the food industry's consumer research arm. “The goal is to get people to manage their fat, to control their fat. We need to find the word that communicates that.”

Wootan said the wording change emphasizes that “what's really important is to cut back on is saturated fat.”

Before the guidelines become official, they must be approved by the departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services. The departments typically go along with the advisory committee's recommendations.

Panel members either declined comment on the draft or did not return phone calls.

The departments were sued recently by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine and other groups. They contend the committee is stacked with scientists biased toward meat and dairy products because of their ties to those industries through research or advisory work.

The lawsuit, which seeks to block the committee from releasing its recommendations, alleges that the guidelines emphasize the consumption of meat, dairy and egg products, ignoring the special dietary needs of minority groups. Many blacks, for example, are lactose intolerant.

“Frankly, it looks to me as if they were written with health interests only about half weighed-in and the remaining part was written with an eye to the meat and dairy industries,” said Neil Barnard, president of the physicians group.

The food industry has not necessarily happy with the committee's work, however.

The National Cattlemen's Beef Association and the National Pork Producers Council did not like the emphasis the committee was putting on saturated fat, telling the committee that it “unfairly indicts all foods of animal origin as bad.”

The food industry wanted to leave the section on sugar alone. The current recommendation is for a diet “moderate in sugars.” Instead, the section is expected to be tightened. In its draft, the committee suggests people limit their intake of foods with added sugars, including desserts, fruit punch and lemonade.

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