The Causal Conundrum
The Diet-Heart Debates and the Management of Uncertainty in American Medicine
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9089792 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Todd M Olszewski (0009-0002-6886-3825, Providence College, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 70 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 218-249 |
| Publication date | 2015-04-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0022-5045 • E-ISSN: 1468-4373 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/jhmas/jru001 |
| PMID | 24599909 |
| OpenAlex | W2054142816 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 14 |
Starting in the 1950s, physicians and researchers began to debate the exact nature of the relationship among blood cholesterol, diet, and cardiovascular risk. Using professional medical, public health, and scientific journals, this article examines the history of a series of intense and sustained debates regarding the credibility of the diet-heart hypothesis, which proposed that diet was causally linked to coronary artery disease. Brought about by intellectual disagreements and illuminated by personal quarrels, these debates created a profound professional rift among researchers who debated whether observational data could be used to prove that dietary intake caused heart disease and who sought to differentiate between "good" and "bad" science. But while the debate persisted into the early 1980s, Americans had begun to adopt the diet-heart hypothesis as public health truth as early as the 1960s, embracing cookbooks promoting "heart healthy" diets that promised to prevent coronary artery disease. Although critics and advocates of diet-heart continued to debate the theory's finer points, the widespread adoption of diet-heart in American homes meant that the debate had become almost moot by the time the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute officially endorsed the hypothesis in the 1980s.
Coronary heart disease · Credibility · Observational study · Pathology · Political science · Public health · Health Promotion and Cardiovascular Prevention · Historical and modern epidemiology studies · Internal Medicine · Law · Medicine · Obesity and Health Practices
Prediction and Possible Prevention of Coronary Disease
Dietary Prevention and Treatment of Heart Disease
Reduce and Stay Reduced
You Can Predict Your Heart Attack and Prevent It
Methods and Management
The Physiology of Extremes
Becoming the Framingham Study 1947–1950
How the Ideology of Low Fat Conquered America
The Great Starvation Experiment
Science, Policy, and Controversy in the Cholesterol Arena
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,29 |
| Citation span | 2019 - 2025 (7) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |