What the Nutrition Guidelines Still Haven't Caught Up To with Arne Astrup

James Hill: Welcome to Weight Loss And, where we delve into the world of weight loss. I'm Jim Hill.

Holly Wyatt: And I'm Holly Wyatt. We're both dedicated to helping you lose weight, keep it off, and live your best life while you're doing it.

James Hill: Indeed, we now realize successful weight loss combines the science and art of medicine, knowing what to do and why you will do it.

Holly Wyatt: Yes, the “And” allows us to talk about all the other stuff that makes your journey so much bigger, better, and exciting.

James Hill: Ready for the “And” factor?

Holly Wyatt: Let's dive in.

James Hill: Here we go.

Holly Wyatt: Jim, I think almost everyone listening has had this experience at some point. One year we think eggs are bad. Then eggs are good. We should be eating them. One time it's butter. It's dangerous. Except now maybe butter is okay. Full-fat dairy was something people were told to avoid for decades. And now suddenly there are scientists saying yogurt and cheese may actually protect health.

James Hill: And honestly, for regular people trying to eat healthier, it can feel exhausting. Every few years, the conversation changes, and people start wondering if nutrition scientists even agree on anything.

Holly Wyatt: But here's the interesting part. Some of the biggest disagreements are not just happening between scientists, they're happening between countries.

James Hill: Yes, Holly, and today we're talking with one of the most influential nutrition scientists in Europe, Dr. Ernie Astrup. In fact, he's one of the most influential nutrition scientists in the world. But we're going to talk about maybe how Europe and the U.S. may see nutrition guidelines in a little bit different way.

Holly Wyatt: Yeah, we're going to talk about saturated fat, ultra-processed foods, dairy, and even GLP-1 medications, and why some scientists believe the U.S. Dietary guidelines may be lagging behind where the science is actually going.

James Hill: And of course most importantly what all this means for people who are just trying to figure out what to eat in real life.

Holly Wyatt: Yeah. Arne, welcome back to “Weight Loss And…” You've been with us before and it was we wanted to have invite you back.

Arne Astrup: Oh thank you so much it's a great pleasure for me to be here back again and I really enjoy doing this with you.

James Hill: Holly, Arne and I have known each other for a long, long time. I'm not going to say how long, but it's decades. Arnie's someone I've always respected for many reasons. First of all, he's always been willing to challenge consensus thinking when he believes the science supports it. Arne is a former head of one of Europe's leading nutrition research departments. He chaired the Nordic Nutrition Recommendations, and he's published more than 700 scientific papers in nutrition and obesity research. But what makes him especially interesting is he had often been willing to publicly challenge nutrition dogma long before it became mainstream to do so.

Holly Wyatt: And before we jump right into the science, I want to start with something a little more personal. You've spent your whole life in nutrition science, which isn't always a quiet or an easy field. What pulled you into this work originally and what has kept you in it through decades of controversy, and changing science?

Arne Astrup: It can easily be quite a long story. I was specializing in endocrinology and metabolism and had some of my residency at the famous Flemming Quaade, who was a leading scientist and professor in Denmark. And he was really the first one who took obesity seriously.

Arne Astrup: He told me when we were sitting in the clinic and having patients who had a really massive obesity with maybe weighing 100 kilos above what was considered normal. And he told me it's a mystery why these people are gaining so much weight and they end up that because they are crying when they're sitting here with me. They really want to lose weight, but still that's some internal power that really prevents them from coming down to a normal body weight. And it's not just about willpower. So he started really to take it serious. And so I think I was actually attracted and drawn to this mystery.

Arne Astrup: So I really started to work on obesity and do research in this area. And at that time, it was really looked upon as something that was low status. And so when I met my colleagues in endocrinology, oh, what happened to you? Did you get sick or get a depression or something? You had to, since you had to follow that track instead of becoming a diabetologist or working with thyroid hormone. All the people who were suffering from obesity at that time, it was much fewer, but you could see that those who met the patients, they were really suffering and had a low quality of life, and nobody took them seriously.

James Hill: Yeah, Holly. Arne and I both started when no one cared about obesity, and now everybody cares about it.

Holly Wyatt: Well, I was going to say, same thing happened to me. It was like, why would you study that, Holly? You're a real doctor. A real doctor studied diabetes or studied cancer. Why are you going into endocrine and that's what you're going to do? Definitely. Even I was going through.

James Hill: Things have changed now. You guys are on the front lines. Arne, we want to focus a little bit today on maybe the approach to nutrition from Europe versus the U.S. But in the U.S., the public sort of in some ways has lost trust in the experts. It's like, gosh, your guidance changed every time. We never know what's coming next. Why do you think this is? And is it the same way in Europe?

Arne Astrup: Actually, I think it is in some way the same way in Europe. I think also that nutrition was really, it was a low status, as we just discussed, and it also meant a lot of the funding for research, it was really difficult to get funding to do some proper and high-quality nutrition research. And it also meant that there was a lot of, you could say, sometimes quite poor science that came out. But also, you and I, we did many studies, but most of the time we did it with the available funding we could get. And it meant that many studies were small of short duration and to control dietary intervention trials where you can really control what people are eating is really difficult. And so at the end of the day, I think it all comes down to after the second world war. When one of your president, I don't remember whether it was Roosevelt or Eisenhower who got a heart attack himself.

James Hill: It was Eisenhower.

Arne Astrup: It was Eisenhower. At that time, he actually was thrilled about that there was that kind of epidemic of heart attacks and cardiovascular disease that was going up dramatically. And I think so he asked the scientists and some keys to find out what is the reason. And he probably did his best to come up with some and found out he could link it in some way to the high fat content of the diet and some saturated fat. But I think today when we're looking back, we know it was tobacco smoking that was the main reason for this increase in cardiovascular disease. But I think at that stage, we knew that, or not we, because we were hardly born at that time, but I think at that time, they knew that tobacco could cause a lot of cancer. But I think the link to cardiovascular disease was not that well established.

Arne Astrup: And ironically, in some way, butter and high-fat foods were demonized, and people were really encouraged to cut down on all the fat. Then, instead of having butter, it was the margarine that was developed based on hydrogenation of plant oils to produce margarine. Today we know that what was happening was actually all the margarine producers was producing trans fatty acids that was really the worst and most dangerous food you can have so I think in some way it was the tobacco, and on top of that, all the hard margarines with trans fat that in some way really accelerated the cardiovascular disease and in some way demonized the saturated fat.

Arne Astrup: And when it was not working and as soon as it was going up, people were blamed that they should cut even more down on the saturated fat and also total fat. And in some way, that was when I came into the area. And when you looked at all the evidence, it was convincing because we didn't have any better trials or better studies. So why not? When we look back, I don't think really we can blame anybody because the food industry, they were just doing what all the scientists and the politicians told them, namely that we want to get rid of all the fat and all the saturated fat and you need to put something else into the food. And that was typically some carbohydrates and sugar and a lot of additives and whatever was needed to try to keep it together and still being tasty and, you know.

James Hill: So, Arne, the U.S. just released a new set of guidelines. So, from your point of view and maybe from your point of view, what do you think?

Arne Astrup: Well, I think there is some good things in it, good stuff in it. And that's also something that I think is a little problematic. Generally, I think the American guidelines have had a spillover on the WHO and on the European guidelines, on the Nordic nutrition recommendations. So I think in some way the U.S. have been the leading force over many, many, many years. But I think over the last years in the European and Nordic countries were emphasized much more on a high fiber and whole grain. And I think that that's probably also in a way to say that starch is probably okay but too much of it is probably not that good and it needs to be accompanied by fiber and whole grain. But going back to the new American guidelines, I think it's it's a good thing that now you have accepted that eggs are okay and a lot of the high-fat dairy is okay, such as cheese and yogurts. And I think what we have been looking for, both you and I, is actually that instead of looking at all saturated fat as one group, we need to look at all the different fatty acids and also what food matrix they existed because we can see that the different saturated fatty acids behave completely different biologically and physiologically.

Arne Astrup: And particularly if they exist, for example, in something that has been fermented as cheese and yogurt, the health effect is completely different and cannot really be predicted just by the content of saturated or total fat. So I think the recognition of all the food are much more complex than, a couple of single nutrients, and therefore we really need to look at the foods, the total food, the whole food, and in some way it also makes the translation to the public recommendation and dietary advisors much easier instead of people they should start to consider, you know, if I should cut down on saturated fat, how can I do this? For example, there's twice the amount of saturated fat in olive oil than in ice cream. So maybe you would cut down on the olive oil instead of the ice cream. So I think it leaves too much question marks to the consumer. So I think it's good that the dairy, and particularly the high-fat dairy, it's been recognized that it's not doing any harm in terms of cardiovascular disease. And probably the same for obesity and diabetes. They have a lot of good protein and nutrients, very nutrient dense. And this is probably much better than a lot of the ultra-percessed food that is probably a pretty bad replacement.

Holly Wyatt: Yeah. So I want to get into some of these details because I know you just talked about a lot of stuff. We talked about saturated fat and the eggs and the processed food. So I want us to unpack those because we get tons of questions on all of those. But stepping back just for a second, why do you think US and Europe aren't aligned? How did that happen? And I think that's part of why people are starting to say, wait, some people think one thing, other scientists think another thing. And it makes it all so confusing and makes the trust in general kind of eroding for many people. Why do you think we're not all on the same page?

Arne Astrup: Well, it is a little difficult to come up with one explanation because I think the scientific community, we are pretty well aligned. We are working closely together and we're using the same methodology and the same assessment of the science. But I think for nutrition research, it will probably always be in that way because everybody are eating at least three times a day and therefore they have an opinion about what is the best to choose and the best to have. They have their own experience.

Arne Astrup: Nutrition is a little special because in some way, everybody are their own experts in nutrition because they have meals three times a day at least. So they have their own experience and preferences, et cetera. Whereas with most other scientific areas, people would say, “Well, I've never studied that. I don't know anything about it.” But with the nutrition and food, everybody has some experience and feel that there's something that is good for them, etc. And therefore, I think, sometimes your own experience weighs heavier than some scientific paper. I quite often heard lay people tell me that, yeah, maybe this is what science said. But in my experience, this is much better for me. And it's difficult to argue, actually, if people are feeling it that way.

Holly Wyatt: Yeah, we talk about that. We call it kind of the antidote. You know, you have your own experience, and that's a very powerful experience. It's an N of one. So to make guidelines for the whole country from an N of one, from one person, isn't the way we do it scientifically, but it's powerful. And I always say everybody is an expert when it comes to eating. So I agree with you on that.

James Hill: Arne, you've been really a leader in this idea that you just can't break down and look at components of what you eat, that there's something about what you eat, what makes up a food or what makes up a whole diet. And I think we tried for years to break everything down and groups would do studies on their particular ingredient and show that it's important. But we don't eat those single ingredients all the time. We eat a complicated diet. Do you think the guidelines are going more to understanding that than to looking at specific components of nutrition?

Arne Astrup: Yeah, I think it's going that way, even though I think it's moving quite slowly. But I see in the new guidelines that at least there's much more recognition that some of the nutrient-dense foods that we have banned previously as an egg, cheese, yogurt, and whole milk. But actually also meat, you know, unprocessed meat to some extent that, you know, there's been also a lot of bad science that have linked some of these foods to some diseases. And I think it's also a reflection of there's also some political issues in this. For example, the climate is also playing a major role now and also here in Europe in particular, that many people, they are cutting down on meat because it's probably bad for the climate to have too many cows and etc. But I think you need to distinguish between effects on climate and effects on your health. Because if it's all the elderly who's cutting down on their meat, it's probably quite bad because they have a much higher requirement for protein and high-quality protein. And they are risking sarcopenia and osteoporosis and other serious issues.

Arne Astrup: So I also think that the dietary advices, I think we need to recognize that one diet does not fit all, that we also need to have for different life stages and different people. You and I, we also did some studies together where we could see that those who had normal blood sugar, that were, for them, a low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet turned out to be quite good for weight control. Whereas for those who were more in the diabetic area, they should definitely cut down on the carbohydrates and they could have more fat and protein to lose weight. So there's also how we metabolize and how the different food components work on our body to give us satiety and also some of the cardiovascular risk factors. So I think more and more, we also need to recognize that one diet does not feed all. And we need to be much better to make more individual recommendations. It means we are moving into the personalized or precision nutrition. It's probably something that is just around the corner where we have much better tools to identify what is good for me and what is good for you.

Holly Wyatt: So let's unpack some of the specifics, because I know some of the listeners have questions. Let's talk specifically about saturated fat. What are your recommendations? Is that a good thing? Have we villainized it too much? Should we be limiting it? Saturated fat, what are your thoughts?

Arne Astrup: I think we should completely skip to talk about saturated fat completely because, as I said before, the individual fatty acids are really completely different. And depending on what food they exist in, they have completely different effects on your body. So it's not really important. We should discuss, look at the food. So it means that perhaps, you know, I think a full-fat cheese loaded with saturated fat and a high-fat yogurt is still very healthy for you, whether it's for your body weight, your diabetes, or your cardiovascular disease. Even for cancer prevention is quite good for rectal caloric cancer. So even though that they have a high content of saturated fat, they seem to be very beneficial for your health. And it's the same with an egg, high content of cholesterol, but it has essentially no influence on your cholesterol in your blood, which is completely different.

Holly Wyatt: Okay. So high fat cheese and high fat yogurt, we think is one thing. Give the listeners an example of a high-saturated fat food that wouldn't fall in that category.

Arne Astrup: I think when it comes to processed food that is highly smoked and salted and another way you process and with a high-fat content, it looks like that the saturated fat is, in some way, by this processing, is becoming more unhealthy. It's quite obvious it cannot be the fat in the—if you have a steak or if you have some meat with a high fat content, if it's unprocessed, it seems to be harmless. Whereas if it's more processed, if you barbecue it or grill it or whatever, then it seems to have some less healthy effect. So we also need to distinguish, but it cannot be the saturated fat in itself. It's an interaction between the way you process it and the meat and probably the fat of the meat. So again, I would say let's skip talking about saturated fat and discuss the individual foods instead.

Holly Wyatt: All right. It's never as simple as you think.

Arne Astrup: But in some way, it's more simple. It's more simple to know if you could have, can you eat butter? Yes, of course you could have butter. I would say today butter is probably neutral in terms of cardiovascular disease. But if you take olive oil or canola oil, they're positive not because they have this saturated fat, but because they have a lot of polyphenols and other ingredients that seem to be very healthy for your body. So they're positive because they have some other ingredients that butter does not have. But it doesn't make butter harmful. But of course, if you compare butter with olive oil and with canola oil, the two latter ones are better and more healthy than the butter, but it doesn't make the butter unhealthy.

James Hill: So in a way, Arne, as the science continues, the guidelines are going to change. And that's not something to criticize. That's actually good that we're able to change our recommendations based on the science.

James Hill: And I think the issue of saturated fats is one that is going to change. And I think the science is backing that up. I want to switch gears a little bit because here in the U.S., everywhere you see recommendations to avoid ultra-processed foods. How is Europe looking at this idea of ultra-processed foods?

Arne Astrup: I think, you know, if we look at many of the examples of foods where you have, in some way, having a kind of almost artificial food where it's really composed of a lot of additives and some artificial stuff you have put together to make it tasty and look good. Then, of course, it's really true that this is unhealthy. We realize that. But the definition of the ultra-possessed food, based on the so-called NOVA classification that came from Brazil is, unfortunately, completely missing any scientific substance.

Arne Astrup: It's simply talking about that if you have a food that have more than one or just one additive then it's also processed so it means that if you add some vitamin c or some dietary fiber to a food then suddenly it becomes unhealthy. There's also other part of the the classification, the definition they use that if you are, for example, if you're producing a burger in your home kitchen with all the different ingredients, it's not ultra-processed.

Arne Astrup: But if you ask your friend to have a restaurant across the street, if you take half of all your purchases of the mixed meat and buns, if you go over and ask him to produce it, so it's suddenly ultra-processed, simply because then it's looked upon as being something that is industrially produced. So there's a lot of emotions and political stuff that have nothing to do with nutrition or health at all. So I think it's a pretty bad and vague definition that makes it very difficult to do research on it. And there are studies that have taken 30 food scientists and nutrition experts and asked them to classify 30 different foods into the different groups and to identify which of these foods are ultra-processed.

Arne Astrup: And there was complete disagreement, even between all these food scientists the nutrition experts were supposed to be able to identify. And that's because the definition is so vague and unclear. There's no threshold for how much you need to add. So if you put very, very small amounts of vitamin C and a pectin fiber or something that is healthy into a food, then it would be ultra-processed.

James Hill: Yeah, Arne, I agree with you. It's not the processing. It's the end result of what the food consists of after the processing. And again, I come back to, okay, if you're telling people to avoid ultra processed foods, how's that really different than what we've been telling them anyway to avoid foods that are high fat and sugar and so forth. So I agree with you. I think it's taking us in a bad direction. But there is this sense of telling people to avoid ultra processed foods. I think the good thing is, I think the more we can look at sort of natural whole foods, the better. But as you know that there is this trade-off between food safety and processing and we've got to get that fine balance because the world the food supply of the westernized world is pretty safe and stopping processing isn't the answer to that but it's not the processing per se it's the end result.

Arne Astrup: I completely agree. And, you know, one of the problems, if you're interested in trying to make a green transition and produce more plant-based foods, of course, that's not necessarily very easy. They should also be tasty and nutritious. But all of them will automatically be ultra-prosessed food. If you do something, for example. if you add some amino acids and mix from different food sources it would be an ultra-persessed food so they don't really distinguish.

Arne Astrup: One of our good colleagues Professor David Ludwig from Harvard he had really analyzed this to say, well, there's no problem in adding protein or with fats as long as it's not trans-fat. The problem is probably in the carbohydrate area, because if you add sugar or if you add some starch without any dietary fiber and all that, you can easily get some glucose spikes and other that can be harmful. So I think it's too general and too vague to be used by scientists and also by the consumers. So maybe, again, we are bombarding the food companies with criticism. But all they did was actually to do what the scientists and the politicians asked them to do. And now we are coming up with this terrible concept where they can't really read about what they should do.

James Hill: Yeah.

Holly Wyatt: Wow. So let's shift a little bit. The thing we talk a lot about on the show are the GLP-1s, the new weight loss medications. How do you think that's going to influence nutrition science and the guidelines? Are the guidelines made for people on GLP-1s? And in the years ahead, will the guidelines maybe shift because of everybody or a large percentage of the population perhaps on these new meds?

Arne Astrup: Well, perhaps there is a need to focus much more on the nutritional needs of people living with obesity and overweight. Because I think the nutritional problems that is coming up now with all the use of the GLP-1 analogs is that we tend to forget that the majority of the obese population, they actually already are malnourished. They suffer from a lot of vitamin and mineral deficiencies, vitamin D, iron, and others. And it's not necessary because they have a poor diet. It's also because some of the fat-soluble vitamins are actually metabolized in a different way and excreted more, etc. And of course, something could also be due to the diet. But it means before you are starting on a weight-off therapy as GLP-1, you already have some nutritional deficiencies. And what happens is that there's a lot of the people who start on these medications where the medication is extremely powerful.

Arne Astrup: There are really huge differences in how sensitive you are. It means that with some people, they cannot really feel anything on the low dose, and they have to wait until the dose is increasing, coming up, so they will start to lose weight. But others, they are very sensitive, and it means that the first week or so, they essentially stop eating.

Arne Astrup: If you stop eating or decrease your food intake to maybe 20% of what you normally eat, and you eat the same diet as you used to, it's quite obvious that the intake of protein and many other nutrients will come down, so you will actually be deficient in many nutrients. And protein and vitamin D, calcium are some of these nutrients that can be quite serious because you will lose excessive amounts of lean body tissue as your muscle, maybe on your bones. And that will increase your risk of sarcopenia and osteoporosis and maybe fractures in the lung end. So I think that it's mainly nutritional deficiencies that are the problem. And, of course, many people also suffer from some of the side effects where they get stomach pain. They get nausea. They get constipation. Some of these are classic side effects of GLP-1. But some of it can also be explained by the lack of, for example, having sufficient amount of water and dietary fiber. Because, you know, if you stop eating, then your stomach and your gastrointestinal system won't get any of the dietary fiber and that would make you constipated.

Arne Astrup: So, there is really a need for some, you can say, dietary advice for people starting on these medications to ensure that they are not really suffering from some side effects that are unnecessary because it could be mitigated by some instruction by a dietician.

James Hill: Arne, you and I both have lived this issue our whole careers. How does science and industry work together? There are some people that say industry's hands-off. You can't trust them. They shouldn't be part of it, but you and I have both collaborated with industry throughout our careers. How do you see that, and how do you think that might be different in the U.S. and Europe?

Arne Astrup: Well, it's an interesting topic because I think without collaboration with industry, you know, the funding of nutrition research would probably be only 10 to 20 percent of what we have seen. And it would mean that we have even much less evidence to make recommendations. There's been a lot of analysis looking at the nutrition research and comparing the results from studies that have been supported by industry money and those from public funding.

Arne Astrup: I would say the quality of the studies that have received industrial funding is much higher. The studies are more well-powered, they are bigger, there are more specific measurements. And that's simply because the industry, they won't invest into a study that is not good enough really to provide them with the, whether find out whether this is good or bad or what is showing and et cetera. So the quality is generally higher. Then people are, some are also saying, but you'll see the industrial funded studies are generally more positive in terms of what the food product that they are studying. And I think that that's, of course, that's true.

Arne Astrup: But if you have some food that you want to study, I think the industry, they will probably not produce a pretty lousy food and ask you to study health effects. So they wouldn't invest into that. So I think they're investing into something if they strongly believe that perhaps there's something we have overlooked here, that could be some beneficial effects of whether it's cheese or chocolate. And so they're willing to invest into it. But if you have some sweets or cookies or cakes, you know this is a treat, and it's not something you would recommend people to eat because it's healthy. The companies behind these products will never start on doing studies to look at healthy foods because they know this is not healthy, and you're not supposed to eat a lot of it every day. So I think there are some very natural explanations. Recently I compared the outcome of studies, and that was for cheese, for yogurts, for chocolate, and also for oils and different fats. And comparing the results that came out for the studies that was funded by industry and those that received public funding, and actually they came to the same conclusions.

James Hill: Interesting.

Arne Astrup: And, you know, it was the same with, if you look at all those arguing for plant oils and plant-based oil, all these studies were also supported by the producers of these oils and nuts and avocados and whatever. So you see it everywhere. And I think it's necessary, really, and particularly if you have a very specific product, you would never get the NIH or any other foundation to support it for research because they would say the company can pay for that. Just like if it's a pharmaceutical company with a new drug, they need to pay for it. And generally, we actually trusted the results. Otherwise, you wouldn't go into a pharmacy and purchase a medication because you cannot trust what comes out of it. So I think that's regulated by FDA and you have FTC and we have other. And I think that's also the reason why we have these committees to assist all the evidence and translate it into guidelines.

James Hill: And at the end of the day, if we're really going to change what people eat, I don't see how we can do it without at least collaborating with the food industry. And it doesn't mean that they're the good guys 100% of the time, but they need to be at the table, they take some responsibility, and they need to work with the public health folks and the scientists.

Arne Astrup: Absolutely. You can say if they're part of the problem, they're also part of the solution.

James Hill: Absolutely.

Holly Wyatt: And I think the point you made, they need to, they're willing to, and they need to pay for some of this research. That makes sense to me. And we just need to have some regulations and some processes in place to make sure that the data coming out is being looked at in a fair way, but it makes sense to me. They're going to do some of the research. We're not going to have independent funding to study all the foods.

James Hill: Holly, hit Arne with the rapid fire, your favorite part of the podcast.

Holly Wyatt: Okay. So these are quick questions, not to put you on the spot, but these are some of our favorites from our listeners. So rapid fire, nutrition hill you would still die on.

Arne Astrup: Chocolate.

James Hill: Chocolate.

Holly Wyatt: Woo! All right. Most misunderstood food in America?

Arne Astrup: Eggs.

Holly Wyatt: All right. Eggs. One thing Americans obsess over that barely matters?

Arne Astrup: I think it could be cholesterol. You still have the white egg omelet.

James Hill: Yeah. Tastes wonderful.

Holly Wyatt: I like those, though. So don't even, Jim.

Arne Astrup: That's okay.

James Hill: All right, all right. It's okay.

Holly Wyatt: One thing Americans ignore that matters a lot.

Arne Astrup: Perhaps it's the intake of dietary fiber.

Holly Wyatt: All right. A nutrition belief you changed your mind about.

Arne Astrup: I think all the low fat, that it could solve all problems, is something I strongly believed in. Actually, Jim and I did some studies way back where we had quite convincing evidence at that stage. Later on, we realized that for young, healthy, and insulin-sensitive subjects, it's fine. But later on, we could see that the low-fat, high-carbohydrate is probably not that good for those who are more insulin-resistant, such as Type 2 diabetes. So we are really moved in that area.

Holly Wyatt: Okay. Last one, rapid-fire, most overrated health food.

Arne Astrup: Well, it's probably all the plant oils, such as corn oil, sunflower oil, etc. I'm a little skeptic about their health effects. And I think this excessive amounts of these N-6 fatty acids might actually not be that healthier as we believe. And that's the reason why I would stick to olive oil, canola oil, and butter.

Holly Wyatt: All right.

James Hill: All right, Holly, I'm going to ask one vulnerability question.

James Hill: We're running out of time here, so I'm going to ask Arne one. Arne, what do you hope the next generation of nutrition scientists does differently than you and I did?

Arne Astrup: Well, I think, you know, if we would focus on doing more food-based research and recognizing that you cannot split each individual food into pieces and believe that if you just have identified one element of it, then one component that you can predict all the health effects based on that. I think if they observe that there's a lot of magic in each food, there will be much more respectful to the whole food and therefore probably also be a little more humble about the conclusions they are coming up with.

James Hill: Love it. Okay, Holly, why don't you close us out and put the pie on the plate for this episode?

Holly Wyatt: Well, I think we've had a lot of pie on the plate. Let's think about it. Actually, I'm going to give our guest one shot at, I think this is good, as we close, is there something you want the listeners to remember, one thing they can remember from this conversation?

Arne Astrup: Well, I think that they should forget everything about saturated fat. Don't focus on that. Focus on the whole food, which means that you can easily have a couple of eggs every day. You can eat your cheese, your full-fat cheese, your full-fat yogurt, and also that butter is quite innocent, neutral. But of course, if you want some more healthier fat, you can have olive oil and canola oil. And these three fats and oils are actually all you need in your kitchen for cooking.

Holly Wyatt: All right. I like that. That's good pie in the plate.

James Hill: Yes.

Holly Wyatt: I think one of the biggest takeaways from this conversation for me is that nutrition science isn't simple. You know, we've talked about now we were looking at macronutrients and now it's like looking at foods. And in a way, I guess that's more simple, but in a way it's more complex because you've got to look at all the different types of foods. People want certainty and I just don't think we're there yet and we keep evolving. I think they want a list of good foods and bad foods, but I don't know that it's gonna work that way and that's what people want.

James Hill: Agreed. Well, thanks to everyone who listened to this episode and thanks for spending time with us today. If this episode made you think differently about nutrition science, dietary guidelines, or even what's on your plate, share it with someone. Holly, we saw our recent numbers and our podcast listeners are really growing rapidly. So we really appreciate all of you who listen and tell others to listen and keep sending us your questions. We do read them. So until next time, thanks, Arne, for being on the show. And we'll see you next time on Weight Loss And.

Holly Wyatt: Bye, everybody.

James Hill: And that's a wrap for today's episode of Weight Loss And. We hope you enjoy diving into the world of weight loss with us.

Holly Wyatt: If you want to stay connected and continue exploring the “Ands” of weight loss, be sure to follow our podcast on your favorite platform.

James Hill: We'd also love to hear from you. Share your thoughts, questions, or topic suggestions by reaching out at weightlossand.com. Your feedback helps us tailor future episodes to your needs.

Holly Wyatt: And remember, the journey doesn't end here. Keep applying the knowledge and strategies you've learned and embrace the power of the “And” in your own weight loss journey.