Researchers said they examined a myriad of internal documents from the trade group called the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, along with historical reports and statements related to the dietary causes of CHD. For years we’ve been hearing of how fat causes heart diseases. The incriminating new research is based on thousands of pages of correspondence and other documents in archives at Harvard, the University of IL and other libraries, found by investigator extraordinaire, Cristin E. Kearns, a postdoctoral fellow at U.C.S.F. This new research on the sugar industry was sort of déjà vu, he said.
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Glantz said the 1967 review helped sidetrack any discussion of the link between heart disease and sugar consumption. As per the analysis, the researchers exaggerated the literature’s consistency on fat and cholesterol, while distracting readers from studies on sugar. Sugar is the number one ingredient that dietitians and nutritionists want you to nix, and it’s being blamed for awful skin, messed-up metabolisms, and increased risk of obesity and heart disease.
Marion Nestle, a nutrition, food studies and public health professor at New York University, said the food industry continues to influence nutrition science, in an editorial published alongside the JAMA report.
Around this time, studies began to warn of a link between sugar and risk factors for heart disease, like high cholesterol and triglycerides, the researchers said. Fat was instead blamed, a report in the New York Times says.
Ranson rejected lead author Kearns’ conclusion to treat industry-sponsored research with scepticism (This is “excellent advice” according to Nestle). The resulting published study concluded that the consumption of fat was of greatest concern when it came to heart health, and significantly downplayed the role of sugar.
The researchers discovered that executives in the sugar industry funded research in the 1960s and “70s that, upon the executives” request, cast doubt on the health risks of sugar while promoting the risks of fat.
Internal documents and correspondence shows how the SRF set the agenda for the study and reviewed drafts before publication in the New England Journal of Medicine, which only brought in a policy of disclosing conflicts of interest in 1984. One of these scientists, the late D. Mark Hegsted, went on to become a major driver of US dietary advice.
“For example, a lot of the messaging during this period around how to prevent heart disease focused on, why don’t you use margarine rather than butter, which has less saturated fat”, Schmidt said.
In a statement, the Sugar Association – which evolved out of the SRF – said it is challenging to comment on events from so long ago.
Another study, in which rats were given a diet low in fat and high in sugar, was rejected because “such diets are rarely consumed by man”. Food company sponsorship, whether or not intentionally manipulative, undermines public trust in nutrition science, contributes to public confusion about what to eat, and compromises Dietary Guidelines in ways that are not in the best interest of public health.
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Last year, Coca-Cola got caught providing millions in funding to researchers that sought to downplay the link between sugary drinks and obesity. The question is whether it influences results, and there is some indication that it does: A PLOS One review of studies linking soda and weight gain found that industry-funded studies were five times more likely to find no link between drinking soda and gaining weight than studies with no reported financial conflicts of interest.
