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I had hoped that when Robert Kennedy Jr. became secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, we would get regulations to make foods less likely to lead to obesity. However, one of the leading researchers on this subject, Kevin Hall, is taking early retirement from the National Institutes of Health at age 54, because of censorship and not being able to maintain the staff and supplies needed to continue his research.
In a groundbreaking experiment, Hall showed that when his subjects could eat all that they wanted of typical, but less processed foods, they lost weight. When they switched to highly processed foods, they gained weight. The results were the same when the experiment was done in the reverse order. Dr. Hall was in the midst of work to determine which properties of ultraprocessed foods, such as calorie density, sugar, salt, and fat lead to overeating.
This is one of many examples in the Trump administration where critical research is being curtailed because of budget cutting and poorly qualified leadership. Meanwhile those who wish to lose weight will have to make their own best guess as to which ultraprocessed foods to avoid.
John Tjepkema
Orono
