When people swap junk food for veggies, they feel better — but it’s because they stopped eating junk, not because veggies are magic.
Scientific Claim
Improvements in health biomarkers following increased vegetable intake are confounded by concomitant reduction in processed food consumption.
Original Statement
“In a randomized control trial, they usually increase vegetable consumption, then measure what happens typically by monitoring a couple of inflammation markers. But here's the thing. If you take someone consuming processed food, and replace it with vegetables, of course, they're going to see some sort of improvement.”
Context Details
Domain
nutrition
Population
human
Subject
Increased vegetable consumption in RCTs
Action
is confounded by
Target
concomitant reduction in processed food consumption
Intervention Details
Evidence from Studies
Supporting (0)
Contradicting (3)
Diet rich in high glucoraphanin broccoli reduces plasma LDL cholesterol: Evidence from randomised controlled trials
This study found that eating more of a special kind of broccoli lowered bad cholesterol, even though people didn’t change anything else in their diet — so it’s the broccoli itself helping, not just cutting out junk food.
The study only looked at what happened when people ate more fruits and veggies, but didn't check if they also ate less junk food, so we can't tell if the health improvements were because of more veggies or less processed food.
Unknown Title
The study shows that eating more fruits and veggies is linked to lower diabetes risk, but it doesn’t check if people also ate less junk food — so we can’t say if the benefit comes from veggies or from cutting out processed foods.