30 Years of Diet Trials: What a Stanford Scientist Is Most (and Least) Sure About | Dr Christopher Gardner

This is Christopher Gardner's eighth appearance on the show. Christopher is a nutrition scientist at Stanford, director of the Stanford Nutrition Studies Research Group, and the author of a new book, Food Sense: What to Eat and Why. He has run more than 20 human diet trials over three decades.

Instead of relitigating the diet wars, we spend this conversation on the machinery underneath them: the trade-off between rigour and real life, why the definitive trial people keep waiting for will never be run, and what a null result is actually worth. I also put a few recent studies to him that cut against my own position.

What we cover

Why the perfect diet trial will never happen, and how that should change the way we read the evidence

The $1.4 million garlic study that found nothing, and why Christopher is proud of it

The four things every popular diet agrees on, and the six foods that divide them

His keto versus Mediterranean trial, and the two findings that went in opposite directions

How he approaches a new study that contradicts his own position

Why he is shifting his focus to hospital, university, and military kitchens

If you take one thing from this episode, let it be the habit of asking what a finding can actually carry before you change anything.

To connect with Christopher Gardner, visit the Stanford Nutrition Studies Research Group, pick up a copy of Food Sense: What to Eat and Why, or find him on Instagram and LinkedIn.

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