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The Harvard Medical School Guide to Healthy Eating A HARVARD MEDICAL
SCHOOL BOOK By Walter C. Willett, M.D.

NEW YORK, July 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The USDA Food Pyramid is wrong.
This ubiquitous American icon, seen everywhere from the backs of
cereal boxes to elementary school bulletin boards, has been proven a
dangerous and misleading dietary guide, contributing to the generally
poor state of American nutrition?including the increasing incidence
of obesity in the United States. Walter C. Willett, M.D., one of the
world's most distinguished experts in nutrition, reveals the danger
behind this deceptive resource and provides a new pyramid that offers
huge potential for longer, and better, living. Derived from decades
of research based on the world-famous Harvard Nurses' Health Study,
the Harvard Physicians Health Study, and Health Professionals
Follow-up Study, the Framingham Heart Study and supported by dozens
of other surveys and investigations, this new food pyramid and other
valuable nutritional information is now available to the public in
EAT, DRINK, AND BE HEALTHY: The Harvard Medical School Guide to
Healthy Eating, by Walter C. Willett, M.D. (Simon & Schuster Source,
August 1, 2001, $25.00). By promoting the USDA Food Pyramid, The
Department of Agriculture-the agency responsible for promoting the
products of American agribusiness, not one of the many federal
agencies established to monitor and protect our health -- is serving
two masters. This can be tricky -- especially when one of them
includes persuasive and well-connected representatives of the
formidable meat, dairy and sugar industries. The end result of their
tug-of-war is a set of positive, feel-good; all-inclusive
recommendations that completely distort what could be the single most
important tool for improving the health of the nation. At best, the
USDA Pyramid offers indecisive, scientifically unfounded advice on an
absolutely vital topic -- what to eat. At worst, the misinformation
it offers contributes to overweight, poor health, and unnecessary
early deaths. The Harvard Medical School's Healthy Eating Pyramid
presents more accurate, less biased, and more helpful information
than that found in the USDA Pyramid. It was not only developed with a
wealth of information unavailable to the USDA Pyramid builders ten
years ago, but was developed by researchers who did not have to
negotiate with any special interest groups.

The book reveals:

To eat fat or not to eat fat? That is not the question. The message
that "all fat is bad" has not fallen on deaf ears: fats and oils make
up about 34 percent of the calories in today's average diet, compared
with 40 percent in the 1960s. Good news? Hardly. Much of the
reduction has been in the consumption of beneficial unsaturated
fasts, and is one reason for the minimal reduction in heart disease
rates in recent years. Unsaturated fats are actually good for you and
can improve the levels of cholesterol and other fat particles in your
blood, fortify your heart against erratic heartbeats, and help
counteract a number of processes that contribute to atherosclerosis,
the gradual clogging and narrowing of arteries.

Calcium: No emergency. The "calcium emergency" campaign, sponsored by
the National Dairy Council to promote the consumption of milk is a
hoax. The United States is near the top of the list of per capita
calcium intake, and studies -- documented in Eat, Drink, and Be
Healthy -- have failed to show that high milk consumption reduces the
risk of fractures. Moreover, it cannot be assumed that high daily
consumption is safe for everyone. For men, a high milk intake seems
to increase the odds of developing prostate cancer, while for women,
high milk consumption may be linked with higher rates of ovarian
cancer.

Go nuts! The next time you're seeking a snack, think nuts. Contrary
to popular belief, they are not junk food. One ounce of nuts gives
you about 8 grams of protein. Yes, nuts have quite a bit of fat but
these are mostly unsaturated fats that reduce LDL cholesterol and
keep HDL (the "good cholesterol") high.

EAT, DRINK, AND BE HEALTHY is a revolutionary guide to food choices
from the renowned Harvard Medical School and School of Public Health.
Walter C. Willett, M.D. is the chairman of the Department of
Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health and a Professor of
Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. A world-renowned researcher,
he was one of the principal authors of the famous Nurses Health Study
and is regarded as one of the most distinguished experts on nutrition
in the world. In recognition of his research contributions, Dr.
Willett was awarded the Mott Prize from the General Motors Cancer
Research Foundation in 2001, one of the most prestigious prizes
awarded to medical scientists. He also has been elected to the
Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. It is a
simple, obvious truth. We need food for the basics of everyday life
-- to pump blood, move muscles, and think thoughts. But we can also
eat to live well and to live longer, more exuberant lives. By making
the right choices, you can help yourself avoid some of the things we
think of as the unavoidable consequences of aging, and EAT, DRINK,
AND BE HEALTHY can literally help you do that.