That's a fair point, and reasonable as someone who's looking for actionable insight. But papers are supposed to contradict each other. This is how scientific knowledge evolves.
I will not claim that nutrition science has achieved methodological purity, because obviously that is far from the truth. But the system doesn't seem to be as broken as folks think.
I think the field just has a long way to go before it settles on methods that are reproducible. Until then, opposing papers are literally the only path we have to get there.
> I will not claim that nutrition science has achieved methodological purity
I'm not in a position to critique the methodology. But the reports that reach the public (and what use are reports that don't reach the public?) keep contradicting one another. If they can't get consistent results, then these reports shouldn't be appearing on the front pages of newspapers; they should stay in the pages of obscure journals.
I pay no attention at all to "nutrition science". I eat a mixed diet, no fruit at all, few green vegetables, a small steak once a week or so, quite a lot of cheese and whole grains. I let my stomach guide me. If I followed dietary guidelines, I'd probably starve. I simply can't swallow food that doesn't appeal to my appetite.
No, it’s totally broken. Typical nutritional studies take a large group of people, ask them what they normally eat, and look for correlation with whatever health problems that have. This can’t possibly work because most people’s diets have been influenced by whatever crap they have read about nutrition over the years.
Or they use animal models, animals whose natural diet looks nothing like a human diet.
The only way to really know how diet affects health is to take a large group of people, assign them different diets, see that they actually follow them, then measure the outcomes. But practically nobody does this because it is really expensive to do.
I will not claim that nutrition science has achieved methodological purity, because obviously that is far from the truth. But the system doesn't seem to be as broken as folks think.
I think the field just has a long way to go before it settles on methods that are reproducible. Until then, opposing papers are literally the only path we have to get there.