Draft:Jonny Bowden

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Jonny Bowden
Education	New York University Clayton College of Natural Health (PhD)
Occupations	Nutritionist, author, musician
Known for	The Great Cholesterol Myth The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth

Jonny Bowden is an American nutritionist and author. He has written or co-written more than a dozen books on nutrition and weight loss, including Living Low Carb, The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth, The Most Effective Ways to Live Longer, The Great Cholesterol Myth, co-written with cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, and Smart Fat, co-written with physician Steven Masley. He worked as a professional musician before entering the health field. He is a board-certified nutrition specialist, and is known for arguing that conventional cholesterol testing is a poor guide to individual cardiovascular risk and that statin drugs are over-prescribed. His views on both have been criticised by Australian heart-health bodies and specialists.

Early life and education

Bowden grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, in New York City. He studied at the Juilliard School for about two years before completing a music degree at New York University, with a minor in psychology. He later took a master's degree in psychology.

He subsequently received a doctorate in holistic nutrition from the Clayton College of Natural Health, an unaccredited correspondence college in Alabama that closed in 2010. He holds the Certified Nutrition Specialist credential, awarded by the Board for Certification of Nutrition Specialists, a certifying body affiliated with the American College of Nutrition.

Music career

Bowden trained as a jazz pianist, studying with Herbie Hancock while leading jazz groups in Greenwich Village. He worked as a pianist for the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and later worked on a number of touring Broadway productions. He has said that he struggled with drug and alcohol addiction during his years as a working musician, and that his recovery was the beginning of his interest in health and fitness.

Fitness and nutrition career

Bowden later entered the fitness industry, obtaining certifications from the National Academy of Sports Medicine, the American College of Sports Medicine and the American Council on Exercise, and taking a position with the Equinox health club chain, where he taught at the Equinox Fitness Training Institute.

From the late 1990s he was a weight-loss coach on the women's website iVillage, and his eight-week weight-loss plan became the book Jonny Bowden's Shape Up! (2001). He has written columns for consumer health magazines including Clean Eating, Better Nutrition and WholeFoods Magazine.

Books

Jonny Bowden's Shape Up! (2001) was reviewed by Publishers Weekly, which described his writing as "confident, informative and direct" and said he had "a voice that commands attention." The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth (2007) surveys individual foods and their nutritional properties.

The 150 Most Effective Ways to Boost Your Energy (2008) collects short strategies drawn from diet, sleep, exercise, supplementation and stress management. Reviewing it for Foreword Reviews, Bobbye Middendorf wrote that Bowden's advice "tends toward the realistic" and that "the entire book lives up to that very high standard."

Smart Fat (2016), co-written with physician Steven Masley, argues for increased consumption of certain dietary fats. Library Journal called it "a sensible reconsideration of healthy eating."

Views on cholesterol and saturated fat

In The Great Cholesterol Myth (2012), written with cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, Bowden argues that total blood cholesterol is a poor predictor of heart disease because lipoproteins are heterogeneous and conventional testing does not distinguish among them; that statins are over-prescribed to populations unlikely to benefit; and that inflammation and sugar consumption are more significant contributors to cardiovascular risk. A revised and expanded edition was published in 2020. Bowden has written that he and Sinatra appeared on The Dr. Oz Show. The episode, "The Doctors Who Say Everything You Know About Cholesterol Is Wrong," was broadcast on 11 December 2012; researchers writing in the Canadian Pharmacists Journal cited it as an instance of television coverage after which viewers taking statins "could have easily concluded that their prescriptions were inappropriate."

Bowden is a co-author of two 2014 journal articles setting out this position. "The saturated fat, cholesterol, and statin controversy: a commentary," written with Sinatra, Beverly Teter, Mark Houston and Miguel Martínez-González, appeared in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. A related commentary on the 2013 statin guidelines appeared in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine.

Catalyst broadcast and response

Bowden was one of the interviewees in "Heart of the Matter," a two-part programme broadcast in October 2013 by the Australian ABC science series Catalyst and reported by Maryanne Demasi. He appeared in the first episode, "Dietary Villains," which questioned the link between saturated fat, cholesterol and heart disease.

The series drew criticism from Australian medical bodies and specialists. The National Heart Foundation of Australia published a rebuttal, and Gerald Watts, writing for the Australian Atherosclerosis Society, said the programme presented a one-sided view, that Australian experts had not been given the opportunity to present the full evidence, and that the opposing commentaries had come from non-experts.

The broadcasts generated 146 complaints, 91 of which raised editorial matters requiring a response, and prompted an investigation by the ABC's independent Audience and Consumer Affairs unit. Reporting on 12 May 2014, it found that the first episode adhered to the ABC's editorial codes and that the second episode, on statins, breached its impartiality standards. The ABC removed both episodes from the Catalyst website and published the finding on its corrections page.

A 2015 study published in the Medical Journal of Australia by researchers at the University of Sydney and the Australian National University found that in the eight months following the broadcasts there were 504,180 fewer dispensings of statins in Australia, affecting an estimated 60,897 people, and that an estimated 28,784 additional Australians ceased statin treatment. The authors projected that if patients continued to avoid statins over the following five years the result could be between 1,522 and 2,900 preventable heart attacks and strokes.

Reception

Responding to the Catalyst programme, the National Heart Foundation of Australia said that high cholesterol remains a risk factor for heart disease, and Watts wrote that large clinical trials show that statins decrease the incidence of heart attacks. Australian medical bodies and specialists criticised the programme in which Bowden appeared as one-sided, and said its opposing commentary had come from non-experts.

Selected bibliography

• Jonny Bowden's Shape Up! (Da Capo Press, 2001)
• Living Low Carb (2003)
• The 150 Healthiest Foods on Earth (Fair Winds Press, 2007)
• The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth (2008)
• The Healthiest Meals on Earth (2008)
• The 150 Most Effective Ways to Boost Your Energy (Fair Winds Press, 2008)
• The 100 Healthiest Foods to Eat During Pregnancy, with Allison Tannis (2009)
• The Most Effective Ways to Live Longer (2010)
• The 150 Healthiest 15-Minute Recipes on Earth, with Jeannette Bessinger (2010)
• The 150 Healthiest Comfort Foods on Earth, with Jeannette Bessinger (2011)
• The Great Cholesterol Myth, with Stephen Sinatra (Fair Winds Press, 2012; revised edition 2020)
• The Great Cholesterol Myth Cookbook, with Stephen Sinatra and Deirdre Rawlings (2013)
• Smart Fat, with Steven Masley (HarperOne, 2016)

References

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Categories:

• Year of birth missing (living people)
• Living people
• American nutritionists
• American health and wellness writers
• New York University alumni
• Writers from New York City