Randomized placebo-controlled trials are considered the gold standard of scientific evidence. In such studies, half of the subjects may get the active treatment, and the other half unknowingly get a sugar pill instead. This works great for evaluating new drugs, but a concern is that evidence-based medicine has made a leap from considering randomized controlled trials to be a high standard to considering them to be the only standard. As my Evidence-Based Nutrition video argues, this may not be prudent in all circumstances. Consider a review of dietary interventions for multiple sclerosis produced by the esteemed Cochrane Collaboration. In that review, they basically concluded there’s not much diet can do. But what about the success of Dr. Swank in treating MS with a low saturated fat diet, the most effective treatment ever reported, published in some of the world’s most prestigious journals? Of course, they knew about Swank’s work, but his study design didn’t fit the inclusion criter...