What are the main points made in Reynold Spector’s article “Science and Pseudoscience in Adult Nutrition Research and Practice”?

The main points made in Reynold Spector’s article “Science
and Pseudoscience in Adult Nutrition Research and Practice” include the
following:

• Recently, adult nutrition research
  and practice have not kept pace with other disciplines in biology and
  medicine.


• Partly this is because adult nutrition research
  and practice often have not adhered to proper scientific
  procedures.


• The purpose of Spector’s own
  article

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is to definitively (wherever possible) or
tentatively (where the data are incomplete or nonexistent) answer a series of key
questions about adult human nutrition using relevant rigorous scientific principles and
methods.

• Many
  common assumptions and teachings about nutrition have not been shown to be
  accurate.


• There is actually some accurate knowledge about
  human nutrition – about the kind of eating the helps keep people
  healthy.


• The body is often impressively able to keep
  needed nutrients in balance.


• As people age, their
  nutritional needs change.


• There probably is an ideal
  weight for each person; generally, the heavier a person is beyond this ideal, the less
  healthy that person is likely to be.


• Many claims about
  the health benefits of certain nutrients are
  false.


• Claims for the benefits of megavitamins are
  generally false.


• Aristotle’s advice to be moderate and
  balanced seems sensible in the field of
  nutrition.

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The notion that some diets (e.g., low-fat or
low-carbohydrate) are better than others is not based on sound science . . . . The USDA
food pyramid of the past (which prescribed what you should eat, how many portions, and
disparaged certain nutritious foods like eggs and butter) was unscientific. . . .
Similarly, recent attempts to create new food pyramids are also flawed, for example,
those that disparage rapidly absorbed carbohydrates (e.g., processed rice and potatoes)
and recommend megavitamin
E.

• Weight-loss
  diets tend not to be effective for overweight
  persons.


• Academics and the nutrition industry have a
  vested interest in the publication of studies that are not rigorously
  scientific.


• Consumers, patients, doctors, and serious
  nutritionists are harmed by current methods and procedures in the field of
  nutrition.


• In
  short,

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. . . the critics of nutritional research and
practice suggest that much nutritional research and practice is, to paraphrase Thomas
Hardy, science’s laughingstock, for two reasons: much of the research . . . is
pseudoscientific for the reasons I have discussed and second, many practitioners and
commercial interests do not readily acknowledge the
truth.

• Current
  trends and procedures need to be reformed; Aristotle’s advice to use moderation should
  be followed unless there is sound scientific evidence to suggest
  otherwise.