Increasingly, epidemiological reports suggested that blood sugar, rather than blood cholesterol or high blood pressure, was a better predictor of atherosclerosis.
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The article draws on internal documents to show that an industry group called the Sugar Research Foundation wanted to “refute” concerns about sugar’s possible role in heart disease. It didn’t end there – the Harvard researcher in question then went on to be instrumental in setting government dietary guidelines that have influenced our eating habits for the past 50 years. It concluded that there was “no doubt” that to prevent coronary heart disease, the only dietary precaution to take was to reduce consumption of cholesterol and saturated fat.
Apparently, the Sugar Research Foundation, known today as the Sugar Association, paid the Harvard researchers a pretty penny for these misleading findings, totaling to an amount that would equal about $50,000 today.
Nestle notes that both Coca-Cola and candymakers have recently tried to influence research by funding nutrition studies. Warning signs about the link between sugar and heart disease though have already emerged as early as the 1950s. But he said that at the time Hegsted and colleagues were writing, evidence for fat as a risk factor for coronary heart disease was “considerably stronger” than for sugar, and he would agree with “most of the interpretations” the researchers made.
In response to the published article, the Sugar Association ensured that the executives at the time should have been more transparent in their research method, yet confirmed the scientifical relevance the study had. In a JAMA Internal Medicine commentary, Marion Nestle, a professor in the Department of Nutrition and Food Studies at NYU, writes that similar practices are going on today.
The JAMA paper relied on thousands of pages of correspondence and other documents that Cristin E. Kearns, a postdoctoral fellow at UCSF, discovered in archives at Harvard, the University of IL and other libraries.
Besides paying the scientists, the sugar group chose articles for inclusion in the review, and received drafts before publication, according to the new report.
The sugar industry is lying to you. “Yet, health policy documents are still inconsistent in citing heart disease risk as a health effect of added sugars consumption”. The group questioned the motive of the new research pointing to the deceptive research, and it also defended its clandestine efforts by reaffirming findings over the last several decades that concluded sugar does not contribute to heart disease-a point that’s only half-true, considering sugar contributes greatly to obesity, which can put one at a higher risk of developing heart disease.
Walter Willett, the nutrition department chair at Harvard’s School of Public Health, said in a statement Monday that conflict-of-interest standards have changed significantly since the 1960s.
“The literature review helped shape not only public opinion on what causes heart problems but also the scientific community’s view of how to evaluate dietary risk factors to heart disease”, said lead author Cristin Kearns, who discovered the industry documents.
The literature review heavily criticized studies linking sucrose to heart disease, while ignoring limitations of studies investigating dietary fats.
The industry spent $600,000 ($5.3 million in 2016 dollars) to teach “people who had never had a course in biochemistry… that sugar is what keeps every human being alive and with energy to face our daily problems”, the analysis said. The journal, which did not require such disclosures at the time, began requesting author disclosures in 1984.
“We acknowledge that the Sugar Research Foundation should have exercised greater transparency in all of its research activities”, the Sugar Association responded in a statement.
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SRF’s vice president and director of research John Hickson said the Sugar Research Foundation “could embark on a major program” to squash “negative attitudes toward sugar”.
