How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

How the Sugar Industry Shifted Blame to Fat

The New York Times,

5 min read
5 take-aways
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Researchers’ sugarcoating of important health facts may be responsible for today’s obesity crisis.


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Health writer Anahad O’Connor reveals that in the 1960s, the sugar industry paid for Harvard researchers to exonerate sugar as a cause of heart disease and to place the blame on saturated fat instead. Although that cooperation between scientists and industry representatives is an extreme example of biased research, O’Connor emphasizes that the food industry’s influence on research is ongoing. getAbstract prescribes taking nutrition research and any resulting dietary guidelines with a pinch of salt rather than a spoonful of sugar.

Take-Aways

  • In the 1960s, the sugar industry paid Harvard researchers to report that saturated fat, not sugar, caused heart disease.
  • The New England Journal of Medicine published the article. Its editors never required the authors to disclose their funding source.
  • One of the researchers later influenced American dietary guidelines, which encouraged Americans to switch to low-fat, high-sugar foods. This shift may have triggered the nation’s current obesity problem.
  • The sugar industry admits it should have been more transparent but maintains that sugar “does not have a unique role in heart disease.”
  • In spite of more stringent conflict-of-interest rules, the food industry’s funding of nutrition research continues today.

Summary

A University of California researcher recently uncovered documents that revealed that the sugar industry had paid scientists to whitewash the role of sugar in heart disease and instead to blame saturated fat.

In 1964, top sugar executive John Hickson planned to use forged science to change sugar’s image. Several researchers had started to expose a link between high sugar consumption and heart disease. Other scientists were countering that research with studies into saturated fat and cholesterol. Hickson paid Harvard researchers the equivalent of $49,000 in today’s money to discredit the anti-sugar campaign’s research and to exonerate sugar. The scientists reported that the evidence against sugar was lacking and that the case against saturated fat was stronger. The New England Journal of Medicine, which didn’t require scientists to declare funding sources until 1984, published their findings.

“Five decades of research into the role of nutrition and heart disease, including many of today’s dietary recommendations, may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry.”

One of the researchers, D. Mark Hegsted, later assisted in developing an early version of the federal dietary guidelines. The guidelines, which remained largely unchanged for decades, linked saturated fat to heart disease. Health experts responded by telling people to eat less fat. Americans switched to low-fat, high-sugar foods in what some experts now see as the start of the nation’s current obesity problem.

“Research should be supported by public funding rather than depending on industry funding.” (Dr. Walter Willett, chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health)

New York University professor Marion Nestle wrote the editorial that appeared alongside the JAMA Internal Medicine paper that exposed the corrupt research. She described the sugar industry’s funding of the research as “appalling” and “blatant.” While the industry said it should have been more transparent in its actions, it maintained that sugar “does not have a unique role in heart disease.” Recent recommendations from the American Heart Association and the World Health Organization caution that a high-sugar diet could increase the risk of heart disease.

Conflict-of-interest rules have changed since the 1960s, but evidence suggests that food industry involvement in nutrition research continues. Coca-Cola, for example, financed research to make the impact of sugar-sweetened beverages on obesity seem less significant.

About the Author

New York Times reporter Anahad O’Connor writes about science, health, diet and national issues. He is the author of the best-selling book The 10 Things You Need to Eat.

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