One of the things that’s critical in any scientific study is the protocol or the details. Examining the protocol is not what most people tend to do when they hear scientific results. But you cannot judge the outcomes if you don’t know the input. So, I’d like to give you a sense of what I think might matter for this study when it’s done. Or, at least what my questions and concerns are.

There are basically 3 diets being explored and everyone in the study will rotate through each of the diets at different times and in different order. This is often referred to as a “crossover” study. Here’s the outline

I’m listing my concerns and hopes in no particular order. Some of the questions I had I was able to resolve by finding more information about the study. So, let’s start with that one.

All 3 diets contain dairy. We all know that some people are lactose intolerant and that reaction to lactose causes digestive issues, predominately, diarrhea. Of course, if someone has diarrhea, this will reduce the absorption of nutrients and skew the results.

I needed more information and did eventually find the inclusion/exclusion criteria for this study. People who have any food intolerances whatsoever, including either gluten or lactose intolerance are excluded from the study.

The diets are not specific about the kind of dairy, lumping them all into the same category. But according to Korean Sasang, goat and sheep dairy are warming and build the spleen, while cow dairy is neutral and builds the lung. Some people can have one and not the other. And some individuals can eat both and some need to avoid all dairy.

At first, I was annoyed that the NIH would waste an entire arm of this study on a diet that is basically processed foods. Don’t we already know that these foods lead to cardiovascular disease, diabetes and possibly some cancers? Then I thought, we may know this, but have we proved it beyond a shadow of a doubt? It is true that some people remain fairly healthy despite eating sugar, flour and highly processed foods.

In a study as large as this one, we may actually prove that some foods lead directly toward disease. W.H.O has two regulatory branches here, ICD (International Classification of Disease and the ICF (International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health). If the proof that a diet high in sugar and flour causes diabetes and is directly or related to amputations etc., the results could help in the development of guidelines and regulatory practices to prohibit food manufacturers from creating some of these highly-processed, pseudo-food ingredients or to label their products as dangerous for health as was done with the tobacco industry.

I’m not sure if the flush between diets with Ensure will include collecting data. But Ensure is certainly not a health food. There are different formulas for Ensure, often containing different protein sources, some dairy some soy. Then vitamins and minerals and flavorings are added. But here are the first three ingredients in order in the original formula…Water, corn maltodextrin (corn starch most likely from GMO corn), and sugar. So, this isn’t exactly a neutral flush, but appears to be more like a highly processed diet. As a matter of fact, here’s the long-term side effects: obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

In conclusion, we may learn some new things that could be very helpful. It’s quite likely that people will fall into groups where some do well on one diet more than another. I think it’s unlikely that one diet will appear clearly better than the others. Although, in Sasang, people needing warming foods are approximately 70% of the population and those needing cooling the other 30%. I hope they don’t conclude that since the majority is a large percentage, that warming foods are better for everyone. That’s typically how clinical trials are assessed. If a drug is effective in 70% of the participants. it gets prescribed to everyone.

The promise is that we will indeed have algorithms that can predict more specifically what type of diet would be best for an individual. I’ve seen plenty of people who go on an extreme diet because it worked well for a friend, or they liked the philosophy behind it. But it was all wrong for them and their health suffered because of it.

I do believe these algorithms have the potential to eliminate the confusion people have about what kind of diet suits them. It may also lead to much needed controls on junk food manufacturers.

However, you don’t have to wait, the Korean Sasang System has over a century of data on how to determine Constitution and you can start eating the perfect diet for you today. Plus, it can tell you details that the NIH study is not designed to determine, like whether cow or goat dairy is good for you, personally.