CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet, Book 2 Launched by Minister. (October 23, 2006)

        On Saturday the Minister for Education Science and Training, Julie Bishop, launched the second edition of the CSIRO Total

Image on CSIRO's website as of October 23, 2006 Note the controversial phrase from the 1st book "the scientifically proven diet for Australians" remains.

 Wellbeing Diet. It follows on first edition sales of 700,000 copies.

A feature of the new volume, which is titled CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet – Book 2 is a six-week illustrated exercise plan designed by CSIRO exercise physiologist, Dr Grant Brinkworth. Miss Bishop also explained that the expanded version of the book contains some 80 new recipes and a 12 week menu plan.

The authors have also included an explanatory section which seems to significantly retreat from the hyperbole which was was part of the first book.  It says in part:

However, nutrition is an art as well as a science. It’s an art because it requires creativity to develop a healthy eating plan for people who differ in their food preferences, beliefs and culture, let alone in their nutritional needs according to their genes and life stage. As we discover more about how our genes and our environment interact, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to provide a single set of dietary recommendations that will be suitable for everyone.
  
What we do know is that there is more than one approach to healthy eating. For example, although the Total Wellbeing Diet focuses on a high-protein eating plan, it is also possible to lose weight healthily with a high carbohydrate or a vegetarian eating pattern. What is important is what works for you.
  
Our books focus on the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet because this eating plan is based on our recent scientific studies, as well as those of researchers overseas. However, CSIRO has also created and published a high-carbohydrate eating plan called the 12345+ Diet. The Dietary Guidelines for Australian Adults, produced by the National Health and Medical Research Council, provide general information on a similarly high carbohydrate eating style.

 

The Australian Guide to Healthy Eating, produced for the Commonwealth Department of Health and Family Services, is also helpful if you prefer a diet lower in animal protein and higher in carbohydrate. We have found through our research that this style of diet is also effective for losing weight and improving health. If eating more bread, pasta and rice is your preference, then this is the approach for you.

Another new section in the 240 page Book 2 is "Is red meat a risk factor for colorectal cancer?" which was added in reply to criticisms that the first book recommended a diet that was overly based on red meat.

In response to a question, the minister replied that in the past she had used some of the recipes and that these days she follows the diet's principles.

Also present at the launch were Dr Geoff Garrett, CSIRO Chief Executive, who spoke about his own weight loss after using the book's methods, and Drs Manny Noakes and Peter Clifton the books' authors, as well as Grant Brinkworth.

Ms Bishop said the first edition of the book was based on long-term scientific research by Drs Noakes and Clifton.

However, the appropriateness of CSIRO attaching its name to a diet book was called into question ten months ago. The journal  Nature in a December 22 editorial under the heading A recipe for trouble: A prestigious research agency should have thought twice before attaching its name to a diet book writing, "There's something decidedly unsavoury about using the phrase 'scientifically proven' to sell anything to the public, yet this is writ large on the book's front cover."

And the editorial added,  "The diet is... being promoted as being beneficial for everyone, whereas the published research indicates that it is superior to a high-carbohydrate diet only for a subpopulation of overweight women with symptoms of metabolic dysfunction.

"[T]he research behind the book was largely funded by the meat and dairy industries, whose products feature prominently in the diet. Detractors say that this aspect should have been more explicitly recognized, instead of being buried in the book's acknowledgements.

"To be fair, the book was not the idea of the researchers or even CSIRO's management. It came from a wily commercial publisher who spotted an opportunity." Note, however, that Book 2 is "Available" from CSIRO Publishing and the controversial phrase "the scientifically proven diet for all Australians" remains.

A December 31, 2005 Viewpoint in TFW points to the authors' summary of the work on which the book relies.

Several minutes spent reading through the carefully crafted abstracts of the two peer reviewed papers is rewarding. The principal analysis, on which the CSIRO diet is based shows a significant difference between the high protein / low carbohydrate vs the low protein / high carbohydrate diet in weight loss (P=3.5%) and diminution of serum triacylglycerol concentration (P=2.3%) but only in the group that showed initial serum triacylglycerol levels above 1.5 mmol/L. That is the only consequential difference between the two diets.

On the other hand research performed on a mixed group of obese men and women and held carbohydrate content constant while regimes of high protein-low fat or high fat - low protein were analysed. show no significant difference in weight loss between the two diets.

Overall then, with the one exception of obese women with serum triacylglycerol concentrations above 1.5 mmol/L, the data are consistent with the conclusion that weight loss is dependent primarily if not solely on caloric intake.

And as a caveat to the research on which the diet is based, an editorial in the issue that the paper of Noakes, et al. appeared (Am J Clin Nutr 2005;81:1298 –1306) J.O. Hill in his editorial refers to the work saying in conclusion, "The question remains as to whether high-protein diets are a temporary tool for helping some people maximize weight loss or whether they represent a reasonable way for some people to eat permanently? The study by Noakes et al is a good start in addressing this question, but we must invest in long-term research studies to obtain a definitive answer."

Whether or not CSIRO is acting responsibly in now publishing its Total Wellbeing Diet Book 2 in the light of the criticisms levelled by Nature and others against the initial volume, and the caution voiced by Professor Hill is a moot point.