Active Low-Carber Forums - View Single Post - analysis of the Seven Country Study by Dr Zoe Harcombe

http://www.truehealthinitiative.org...THI_.8-1-17.pdf

I find this part of the White paper baffling, seeing that it's supposed to support the objectivity of the whole pursuit;

Quote:

Of the seven countries, the United States and the Netherlands each provided a single
cohort, the former Yugoslavia (now Croatia and Serbia) provided five, Italy three, and
Japan, Greece, and Finland each contributed two.
1–4 In most cases, cohorts within each
country were selected because of purported differences in eating habits, thus potentially
providing dietary variation between a region’s cohorts. In the analysis, comparisons were
therefore made between individual cohorts as well as between countries.
The United States was an obvious choice because the research team was based in
Minnesota.
3 Researchers and public health officials were interested in discovering factors
linked to the relatively high incidence of coronary heart disease plaguing middle-aged
men in the U.S.

Japan had an extremely low rate of reported coronary heart disease and a national diet
uniquely low in fat, though it was unclear whether particular health outcomes reported
were due to diet, the Japanese tendency to record sudden deaths as cerebrovascular, or
both.
1 The Japanese cohort in Tanushimaru was a farming community, while the
Ushibuka cohort was a fishing community with a diet higher in seafood.18

North Karelia, Finland, was known for high-fat diets and allegedly had extremely
high rates of coronary heart disease. The West Finland cohort included men in two rural
villages, where coronary heart disease was purportedly lower than in East Finland.18

The Greece cohorts in Crete and Corfu were included because they reported low
mortality from coronary heart disease, but high intakes of fat, particularly olive oil

The defense against the charge of cherry-picking countries here looks a lot like a description of how countries were cherry-picked.

Also Zoe highlights this;

Quote:

Additionally, other than preferential addition of developed nations with very diverse diets
to improve the power of the study, lack of interest, preparation, or funding were the only
reasons for excluding countries

If you noticed this;

Quote:

Researchers and public health officials were interested in discovering factors
linked to the relatively high incidence of coronary heart disease plaguing middle-aged
men in the U.S

There's a reason why France might not have been interested in a study looking at the possibility of a connection between saturated fat and heart disease. Japan and Greece had "yay, team" going for them, let's see what's so wonderful about out diet. Places with high heart disease had good reason to participate. "French Paradox" might not have been in use yet, but might have kept France--and other "paradox" countries from seeing any point in participating.