Fact or Fiction? Mass General Brigham Researchers Set the Record Straight on Common Food Misconceptions

True. Our study examined over 25,000 U.S. female healthcare professionals who were initially healthy and over the age of 50 and followed them for more than 25 years. Women who adhered most closely to the Mediterranean diet had up to 23% lower risk of death, with benefits seen for both cardiovascular and cancer-related deaths. Notably, introducing (and maintaining) a single extra component of the diet led to a 5% reduction in long-term risk of death from these diseases. It was striking to find how greater adherence to a Mediterranean-type dietary pattern has strong, impactful long-term health benefits. What we eat now has important health implications for our cardiometabolic health and longevity for the next 25 years.

Samia Mora, MD
Director of the Center for Lipid Metabolomics
Brigham and Women’s Hospital

False. While some people certainly have food allergies or autoimmune conditions (like celiac disease) where certain foods are always the culprit, many digestive symptoms have more complex causes. In some cases, patients will be eliminating more and more foods because they had a bad reaction to those foods, when the real culprit is not the type of food itself, but the digestive tract's response to eating in general.

In what we call ‘disorders of gut-brain interaction,’ abnormal nervous system function in the GI tract causes patients to feel abnormal sensations even when digestion is seemingly working normally. Targeting these abnormal nervous system responses may be a better goal of treatment rather than eliminating foods from the diet.

Kyle Staller, MD, MPH
Director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory
Massachusetts General Hospital

True. We found that modest blueberry intake (one or more servings per week) was associated with a significant 28% lower risk of total age-related macular degeneration (AMD), an eye condition that leads to significant vision loss, in a large cohort of middle-aged and older women followed for more than a decade. Blueberries contain several bioactives associated with health benefits that may extend to eye health. In particular, blueberries contain anthocyanins, a type of flavonoid that gives blueberries their blue color and can be found in other plant-based foods.

Howard D. Sesso, ScD, MPH
Associate Professor, Division of Preventive Medicine, and Director of Nutrition and Supplements Research, Osher Center for Integrative Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital

False. Plant-based diets can take so many different forms and have diverse and sometimes contrasting health effects. Imagine a plant-based diet dense in refined grains, sugary beverages, candies, and other unhealthy plant-based foods versus a plant-based diet rich in fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, coffee, tea and more. These two diets contrast in quality and have a divergent impact on human health. The first diet, despite being plant-based, is an unhealthy diet and is associated with many adverse health outcomes. The second diet is a healthy version of a plant-based diet, and our team’s research has shown that it is robustly associated with better health outcomes, including lower risk of developing diseases such as diabetes, obesity and gout.

Qi Sun, MD, ScD
Associate Professor, Department of Medicine
Brigham and Women’s Hospital

False. The “choice architecture” of the grocery store or any food environment strongly influences what we purchase. Healthy choice architecture (i.e., when healthy items are placed in highly visible or convenient locations) increases the likelihood of making a healthier choice.

We have demonstrated this effect in the Mass General Hospital cafeteria where food and beverages are labeled as red (least healthy), yellow, and green (healthiest). When the healthiest items were placed at eye level or in convenient locations (e.g., water bottles in baskets at food stations), employees were more likely to make healthier choices. We also demonstrated the same effect in corner stores in Chelsea when we placed fresh produce at the front of the stores and near checkout counters.

Unfortunately, the food industry has leveraged ‘unhealthy’ choice architecture for many decades to tempt us into impulse purchases by placing foods high in sugar, salt, or unhealthy fats on supermarket endcaps, checkout lanes, or at the front of the store.

Anne Thorndike, MD, MPH
Associate Professor of Medicine, Primary Care Physician
Massachusetts General Hospital

True. The strongest evidence to date comes from the LEAP Trial (Learning Early About Peanut Allergy), where Guidean Lack and colleagues have demonstrated that introducing developmentally appropriate forms of peanuts between four and six months of age can result in an 80% reduction of peanut allergy in high-risk children.

We collaborated with Corinne Keet, MD, PhD, at Johns Hopkins University on a study and demonstrated that in kids with severe eczema, the chance of peanut allergy significantly increases with time. While less than a fifth of children younger than six months were already allergic to peanuts, about half of children over 8 months were allergic to them. These findings highlight the importance of not delaying the introduction of developmentally appropriate forms of peanuts.

Michael Pistiner, MD, MMSc
Director of Food Allergy Advocacy, Education and Prevention
Mass General Hospital for Children