CSIRO under fire over diet book

1/10/2006

MAXINE McKEW: Now to a book that has squeezed 'The Da Vinci Code' from the number one position on the best-seller list. And for some Australians, it might just provide the way to keep that New Year's resolution to take some kilos off and keep them off. While popular with dieters, the CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet has slammed by some of Australia's nutritional heavyweights and raised questions about the involvement of the country's foremost research institution in the weight-loss publishing sensation. Critics say the high-meat diet is potentially dangerous and questions the fact that funding for research behind the book was provided in part by Meat and Livestock Australia. Many dietitians, though, say that the diet is sound and that if it helps tackle Australia's growing obesity problem, it should be encouraged. Tracy Bowden reports.

LOUISE BORG: I feel fantastic. I tried many diets from Weight Watchers, Aitkens, milk shake and nothing ever succeeded until the CSIRO diet came along.

TRACY BOWDEN: Louise Borg has been trying to lose weight for years, but those excess kilos just wouldn't shift. Then she did what more than 500,000 Australians have done - bought herself a copy of a diet book that bears the name of Australia's foremost research organisation.

LOUISE BORG: It's really just a balanced eating plan, so I wouldn't call it a diet. It's more a healthy lifestyle eating.

TRACY BOWDEN: Seven months ago, Louise Borg tipped the scales at 99 kilograms. She's lost 27 kilos and now in the early stages of pregnancy says this is the first time she's been able to stick to an eating plan.

LOUISE BORG: I thought it balanced out your fruit and vegetables very well to your protein, your meat, your fish, your chicken. So I thought it was quite a balanced eating plan.

TRACY BOWDEN: The CSIRO Total Wellbeing Diet is a low-fat, high-protein program. It advocates 200 grams of lean red meat, fish or chicken daily. Sounds like a sensible, moderate approach, but the reaction from some nutritionists has been anything but.

ROSEMARY STANTON, NUTRITIONIST: Well I think the main problem is that it's based on not very good science.

ASSOC. PROFESSOR MANNY NOAKES, CO-AUTHOR: I think it's a bit of grand standing. Once again if she was so concerned she should have raised it with CSIRO and that certainly has never been done.

TRACY BOWDEN: Weight loss is a fast-growing business with more than 65% of Australian men and 45% of women overweight, there are big bucks to be made telling people how to slim down. While the CSIRO book has become a bestseller, the diet has come under fire. The highly-respected international science journal 'Nature' has questioned whether the book might ultimately damage the reputation of the CSIRO.

ROSEMARY STANTON: I think one of the problems is that people do trust the CSIRO and so they should. And so that has given this book an element of sort of truth for the public which I don't think is backed by the actual research results that CSIRO have published.

TRACY BOWDEN: Rosemary Stanton, herself the author of a string of books on nutrition, is so concerned about the CSIRO diet she's written to the Federal Government.

ROSEMARY STANTON: Now, there's a fair bit of evidence that if you keep up this very high meat intake for a long period of time you're substantially increasing your risk of bowel cancer. So I don't think it's safe for the long-term. If it's not safe for the long-term, then probably it's not the right diet for people to follow.

ASSOC. PROFESSOR MANNY NOAKES: It's essentially a good, balanced, healthy diet. It's a lot better than what most Australians are eating. We're not about to convert vegetarians to carnivores but Australians do like their red meat and they eat fish and the foods that are in the diet. And I think it is a dietary pattern that people can feel confident will improve their health substantially.

TRACY BOWDEN: The co-author of the book, Associate Professor Manny Noakes, anticipated the diet would be controversial, but insists it's based on sound science.

ASSOC. PROFESSOR MANNY NOAKES: We've done a number of studies and also people overseas have researched and area of high-protein diets for some time and the reason it's a little bit - and I say only a little bit to current dietary recommendations - is because it's based on new science. But I should also point out that the critics are virtually shooting themselves in the foot because the Australian dietary guidelines explicitly say that lean red meat does not relate to colon rectal cancer which is what the critics are suggesting that the dietary pattern we're proposing does do.

DR NARAS LAPSYS, CONSULTING DIETICIAN: There's lots of way people approaching health - the critics have their own theories that they're promoting that is different to the CSIRO diet.