Bad News For College Students Sugar Is Definitely Bad For You

Bad News For College Students Sugar Is Definitely Bad For You pexels.com According to newly released historical documents, back in the 1960s, it’s suggested that the sugar industry paid scientists to downplay a certain link between sugar and heart disease, placing the blame instead on saturated fat. A researcher from the University of California in San Francisco uncovered these documents from the sugar industry and published them in JAMA Internal Medicine. And what these documents suggest is that over 50 years of research into nutrition and heart disease were shaped, on a large scale, by the sugar industry. So today’s dietary recommendations quite possibly hold no merit. According to Stanton Glantz, professor of medicine at UCSF (and an author of JAMA paper), “They were able to derail the discussion about sugar for decades.” Even worse? The Sugar Research Foundation (or the Sugar Association, as it’s known today), paid three Harvard scientists $50,000 (today’s money) to publish a review on sugar, fat and heart disease that minimized the link between sugar and heart disease and instead cast the blame on saturated fat. In other words, this article was falsified to hide the real harm sugar does to the body. And while this is a seemingly isolated incident back in 1967, this isn’t the only indication that the food industry has been influencing nutrition studies and recommendations. In fact, just last year the New York Times uncovered the fact that Coca-Cola gave millions to researchers to downplay the link between sugary drinks and obesity. And the Associated Press also recently reported that candy companies were funding studies that were showing kids that eat candy weigh less than those who don’t. Of course, now the scientists from Harvard involved in the sugar scandal are no longer alive and neither are the sugar executives responsible for paying them off. And the sugar industry has since responded to the JAMA report that called them out for funding studies that benefited them, but they claimed that the 1967 review came out at a time where the researchers weren’t required to disclose their funding sources. According to the Sugar Association, the industry “should have exercised greater transparency in all of its research activities.” But even in saying that, the association continued to defend the research in saying that it concluded sugar “does not have a unique role in heart disease.” So why is this important? Lying isn’t the worst part, it’s the way it has affected the population that is now a problem. Because of these studies, the general population believed that sugar was less harmful than saturated fats, so people began consuming low-fat, high sugar foods to control their fat intake. What this has done, as sugar is actually the culprit, is fueled a prevalent obesity crisis even further. According to Glantz, “it was a very smart thing the sugar industry did, because review papers, especially if you get them published in a very prominent journal, tend to shape the overall scientific discussion.” So essentially what happened is this research, that was manipulated for the sugar companies, influenced the government’s dietary recommendations, which in turn suggested to consumers that sugar wasn’t nearly as bad as it actually was. Instead of sugar, saturated fat was seen as a major cause of heart disease, and sugar was emphasized as nothing more than empty calories. And while recently saturated fat warnings still exist, the American Heart Associate, the World Health Organization and other health authorities have warned against added sugar in large amounts for cardiovascular risks. According to Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at NYU, there is “compelling evidence” that the sugar company funded this research “expressly to exonerate sugar as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease … I think it’s appalling. You just never see examples that are this blatant.” And according to Dr. Walter Willett, the chairman of the nutrition department at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, this is “why research should be supported by public funding rather than depending on industry funding. Given the data that we have today, we have shown the refined carbohydrates and especially sugar-sweetened beverages are risk factors for cardiovascular disease, but that the type of dietary fat is also very important.” Everything is documented through archives at Harvard as well as at the University of Illinois and other libraries. These archives are complete with statements from John Hickson, the top sugar industry executive, in which he says things such as “we can publish the data and refute our detractors” and, upon reading the review, “Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind, and we look forward to its appearance in print.” Essentially, this looks very bad for the sugar industry. And it’s only a matter of time before the news spreads faster and there are bigger issues at hand. Moral of the story: don’t believe everything you read.