On Nutrition

It’s not much of a secret that there’s a lot of misinformation that claims to have a basis in scientific fact — climate change isn’t real, the Earth is flat. I cringe at some of the nutrition and health information I come across that’s questionable at best, patently false or even dangerous at worst. And if I were to make predictions for 2025, I would say that, given some of the nominees floated for health-related government positions, misinformation and pseudoscience are going to become even more prevalent.

Pseudoscience is a claim for or an explanation of an observed phenomenon that’s presented as science despite lacking scientific rigor. If there is any published research that appears to support a pseudoscientific claim, its invariably flawed, perhaps due to a faulty premise or bad study design. It may have appeared in a low-quality scientific journal that has had to retract an unusually high number of articles after publication. Other pseudoscientific claims may be based on:

• Cherry-picking of published research results (ignoring research that rebuts the claim)
• Anecdotal “evidence”
• Unreasonable extrapolation of results from cell- or animal-based research to humans
• Human research that’s inconclusive or very preliminary

These claims can appear to make sense because they’re bolstered by a science-y sounding mix of jargon and buzzwords. It’s no surprise that even otherwise educated and intelligent people seeking solutions for real or perceived nutrition and health problems fall for this misinformation.

In today’s “post-truth” era, the flames of pseudoscience and misinformation have a lot more oxygen, and social media has made it easier than ever for someone to say anything they want and find an audience that will share it. Nutrition pseudoscience in particular is getting worse, with many people operating in the “wellness” space giving their opinion like it’s fact.

In a 2018 analysis of the state of nutrition science, two professors from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University wrote: “Almost everyone seems to have an opinion on food and nutrition … We all eat, interacting with our food multiple times each day over a lifetime, making food and nutrition seem tangible and accessible. Yet opinion is not always based on science, and often the loudest, most extreme voices drown out the well informed.”

It doesn’t help that evidence-based advice to eat a balanced diet, be physically active, and get enough sleep may not seem very sexy, whereas fear-based pseudoscientific claims (“Eat this food and you’ll destroy your health!”) grab our attention. That attention also sells products and increases social media engagement, giving peddlers of misinformation incentive to keep peddling.

The ever-evolving nature of science — good science involves asking questions, conducting a well-designed research study, then using the resulting new knowledge to ask new questions, then repeat, repeat, repeat — can itself become fuel for promoters of pseudoscience, who claim that researchers and other science-based nutrition and health professionals are changing the story, making things up, or don’t know anything to begin with.

If you’re thinking it’s the Wild West out there, you’re not wrong. So think critically about what you see online and on social media. What are the credentials of the person who is talking? What evidence do they cite? Does the claim contradict established information? Are they selling expensive supplements or products? Are they promoting conspiracy theories? As we move into 2025, I’ll be diligently watching for — and calling out — nutrition and health misinformation. You can always send me an email if you see a bit of information that seems not quite right. I just might write about it.