Problems with the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans: An Alternative

Area of Science:

• Nutrition Science
• Public Health Policy

Background:

• The 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) were released with significant controversy.
• Several recommendations within the 2015 DGA have been questioned regarding their scientific validity.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critically evaluate specific recommendations in the 2015 DGA that appear to lack robust scientific evidence.
• To identify potential negative health outcomes associated with these questionable dietary recommendations.

Main Methods:

• Review of scientific literature supporting key recommendations in the 2015 DGA.
• Analysis of the evidence base for specific guidelines concerning refined grains, dairy, saturated fat, sodium, and oils.

Main Results:

• Key recommendations examined include allowing half of grains to be refined, promoting low-fat dairy, limiting saturated fat to <10% of calories, restricting sodium to <2,300 mg/day, and recommending up to 27g/day of unsaturated oils.
• These specific recommendations were found to have insufficient scientific evidence supporting their inclusion.

Conclusions:

• The reviewed 2015 DGA recommendations may potentially elevate the risk of cardiometabolic diseases, diabetes, obesity, dyslipidemia, cardiovascular disease, and certain cancers.
• Further scientific scrutiny and evidence-based revisions are warranted for future iterations of the DGA.