A wider lesson in the University of Colorado- Coke research debacle.

It’s hard not to be skeptical of research on obesity by someone like Professor James Hill of the University of Colorado School of Medicine, who globetrotted at Coca- Cola’s expense, accepted $ 550,000 from the company, and indicated in an e- mail that he would like to shore up Coca- Cola’s image. That’s the same company with which he would solicit a job for his son, as revealed in David Olinger’s recent report in The Denver Post.

Earlier news reports prompted CU in November to return a $ 1 million contribution that Coke had provided to establish the Global Energy Balance Network, a non- profit with which Hill was a leading figure.

We commented previously on Coca- Cola’s obvious attempt to purchase research that it would find congenial, and don’t intend to belabor the criticism here— especially since Coke itself has repudiated the initiative. But the latest story on Hill’s disturbingly cozy relationship with the company should also be a lesson for people who pay attention to academic and “expert” guidance on nutrition.

Maybe the best advice for such people is: Don’t.

Or perhaps better advice might be: At the very least take any pronouncements or alleged scientific findings on the topic of nutrition and obesity— eggs are bad, artificial sweeteners are bad, etc.— with the understanding that they may well be premature or utterly incorrect. The record is not encouraging. The science writer Ross Pomeroy with RealClearScience recently wrote, “I’m fed up with nutrition science, and you should be, too.”

And what is Pomeroy’s beef ( so to speak)?

“The vast majority of nutrition studies are observational in nature,” he explained. “Scientists look at people who eat certain foods and examine how their health compares with the health of people who don’t eat those foods or eat them at different frequencies.”

Unfortunately, “these sorts of studies have a high chance of being wrong. Very wrong.”

Among Pomeroy’s evidence, a 2011 study demonstrating that “100 percent of the observational claims” in 52 studies involving alleged benefits of vitamin supplements “failed to replicate” in randomized clinical trials. In other words, every single finding in those studies was dubious.

Unfortunately, he notes, a discouraging percentage of even clinical trials also have been shown to be “of rather low quality,” for various reasons.

To be sure, Pomeroy cites corporate influence as a reason for the suspect nature of some nutrition research— but it is by no means the only cause. He says the problem goes much deeper, and that the whole effort to define what is a healthy diet and what isn’t may even be doomed from the start given how individual responses vary so dramatically to the same foods.

As another new year begins, some people no doubt want to turn a page on their diet. All well and good. However, they’d probably do as well trusting their common sense and a commitment to moderation as the creed of any nutrition guru.