April 20, 2026
2 min read
Key takeaways:
- Recent dietary guidelines emphasize greater protein intake while providing mixed messaging.
- A speaker said to avoid overeating protein and to recommend diets supported by outcome data.
SAN DIEGO — Developments in nutrition methodologies have led to contention about certain dietary approaches, according to the keynote speaker at the Obesity Medicine Association’s annual conference.
“In some ways, we are living in the best of times, as we have witnessed unprecedented break-throughs in obesity medicine” via developments in GLP-1 receptor agonists and disease prediction tools, Frank Hu, MD, PhD, Fredrick J. Stare Professor of Nutrition and Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said.
But “in other ways, we are in the worst of times as we are facing global metabolic crisis, skyrocketing obesity rates, accelerating climate change, food insecurity, misinformation and paralyzing confusion about nutrition,” Hu said.
According to Hu, obesity medicine relied on the energy balance model for decades, which calls for eating less and moving more.
“However, this paradigm ignored the role of hormonal regulation, food quality and metabolic adaption,” he said. “As we all know, most patients on a low-calorie diet regain their weight within a few months. That’s because of metabolic adaptions.”
Now, major guidance like the 2025 to 2030 Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGAs) recommends an intake of between 1.2 g to 1.6 g of high-quality protein per kg of body weight daily.
Hu said this has led to a “huge debate” about protein’s role in a healthy diet.
Specifically, some maintain that high-protein diets can preserve muscle mass and improve metabolic rate, “but others have cautioned that too much protein, especially animal protein, can promote tumor growth and accelerate biological aging,” he said.
Hu pointed out that the protein dispute is one of several issues with the latest edition of the DGAs.
Another includes its mixed messaging, which “has led to a lot of confusion in the general public,” he said.
For example, while the new DGAs retain the recommendation of consuming less than 10% of saturated fat daily, they highlight full-fat dairy, red meat, butter and tallow in their visuals, “especially the upside-down pyramid,” Hu said.
There is also no mention of lactose intolerance, which Hu said “is pretty common in the general population,” or about “the environmental and socioeconomical impact of food consumption.”
He highlighted several dietary recommendations for health care professionals amid this confusion, including that clinicians should continue to emphasize dietary patterns, like the Mediterranean diet, Alternative Healthy Eating Index and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension-style diet, that are supported by outcome data.
He also recommended replacing saturated fats with unsaturated plant oils, although “that doesn’t mean that you should completely avoid unsaturated fats — the main thing is that unsaturated fats are kept at certain levels in your diet.”
“Avoid overemphasizing protein. It’s an important nutrient, of course, but it’s not a free pass,” Hu said. “If you consume too much protein, it will turn into fat eventually, and it has a huge burden on your activities.”
He said that clinicians should also:
- individualize patients’ protein intakes by physical activity, age, sex and health statuses;
- provide culturally adaptable and feasible guidance; and
- clarify inconsistencies between numeric targets and visual messaging.
“If you don’t like graphics of the [DGA] pyramid, you can use the Mediterranean diet pyramid, which is more actionable, tangible and evidence based,” Hu said.
Sources/Disclosures
Source:
Hu F. The nutrition revolution: Understanding food, science, and obesity in a new era. Presented at: Obesity Medicine 2026. April 10-12, 2026; San Diego.
Disclosures:
Hu reports contracted research for Analysis Group.
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