Published on August 24, 2005
Phentermine Saver News Desk
The dairy industry is presently involved in a $200 million advertising campaign that aims to promote the consumption of dairy products. The whole campaign is biased on the claim that three servings of dairy products in a low calorie diet helps in losing weight.
Many doctors feel these claims are false and they are not backed by adequate research. The claim is said to be a misinterpretation of research results. The Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) has filed two major lawsuits recently, to stop this multi-million dollar advertising campaign. According to the PCRM the three main dairy industry trade groups - National Dairy Council, International Dairy Foods Association and Dairy Management Inc. and international food giants Dannon, General Mills, and Kraft Foods are misleading consumers by carrying out a deceptive advertising campaign based on false claims about the effect of dairy products on weight-loss.
The dairy industry’s weight-loss campaign is based on just two small-scale studies that too using questionable methodology. The research was carried out under the supervision of Michael Zemel who is an industry-funded researcher at the University of Tennessee. Only Dr. Zemel has found a relation between weight loss and dairy consumption, other researchers feel there is no link between the two. In fact some studies have also shown weight gain!
There have been 35 clinical trials carried out since 1989, which aimed to investigate the relation between dairy products and body weight. While the majority of these tests have found no relation, two tests showed that dairy products results in weight gain. Only the two tests conducted by Dr. Zemel say that dairy products help in both weight and fat loss. Dr. Zemel has received almost $1.7 million as research grants from the National Dairy Council (NDC) and $275,000 from General Mills since 1998.
Doctors feel Dr. Zemel’s tests are too small to support the industry’s claim to invest in the campaign. Even major organizations like the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee who drew up the 2005 Dietary Guidelines, the American Heart Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have not found any relation between dairy consumption and weight loss.
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