The EAT-Lancet Commission's Dietary Composition May Not Prevent Noncommunicable Disease Mortality

• Published in: The Journal of nutrition Vol. 150; no. 5; pp. 985 - 988
• Main Authors: Zagmutt, Francisco J, Pouzou, Jane G, Costard, Solenne
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Elsevier Inc 01.05.2020; Oxford University Press; American Institute of Nutrition
• Subjects: Body Weight; Diet; Diet - standards; dietary recommendation; Dietary supplements; EAT-Lancet Commission; Energy consumption; Environmental impact; Feeding Behavior; Food Industry; Humans; Issues and Opinions; Mathematical analysis; Monte Carlo simulation; Mortality; Noncommunicable Diseases - mortality; Nutrition; Nutrition Policy; planetary health diet; stochastic modeling; Uncertainty; Weight; United States > US; RR; REF; EAT-Lancet Commission; CRC; dietary recommendation; stochastic modeling; SDI; planetary health diet; Monte Carlo simulation; NCD
• ISSN: 0022-3166; 1541-6100
• DOI: 10.1093/jn/nxaa020

The recently published EAT-Lancet Commission report on dietary impacts on the environment suggested that their proposed diet could prevent more than 10 million annual premature mortalities from noncommunicable diseases globally. The report did not meet standards for transparency and replicability, nor did it fully account for statistical uncertainty. Our attempt to replicate the mortality calculations for the United States revealed flaws in the assumptions and methods used to estimate the avoided mortalities. After correcting some calculation errors and fully accounting for uncertainty in the avoided mortalities, the mortality reduction effect of the EAT-Lancet proposed diet in the USA is no greater than the impact of energy consumption changes that would prevent under-weight, over-weight, and obesity alone. As our findings call into question the global conclusions of the EAT-Lancet report, futher independent validation is needed before it can be used to inform dietary guidelines.