Industry-funded scientific 'research' on sugar

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Fred99

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Topic # 202001 13-Sep-2016 12:08

Industry-sponsored nutrition research, like that of research sponsored by the tobacco, chemical, and pharmaceutical industries, almost invariably produces results that confirm the benefits or lack of harm of the sponsor’s products, even when independently sponsored research comes to opposite conclusions

By 1965, the *SRF funded “Project 226,” which would have Hegsted and McGandy—supervised by Stare—write a literature review that downplayed sugars’ role in heart disease and shifted blame solely to saturated fat. In return the researchers received a total of $6,500—the 2016 equivalent of $48,900.

*Sugar Research Foundation.

Response from The Sugar Association (previously known as the Sugar Research Foundation}:

Most concerning is the growing use of headline-baiting articles to trump quality scientific research—we’re disappointed to see a journal of JAMA’s stature being drawn into this trend.

The Sugar Association is always seeking to further understand the role of sugar and health, but we rely on quality science and facts to drive our assertions.

Such freaking hypocrisy. We've seen this before.

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Reply # 1628492 13-Sep-2016 12:12

No need for a new topic, there's one here.

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Fred99

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Reply # 1628497 13-Sep-2016 12:21

timmmay:

No need for a new topic, there's one here.

That's a locked thread - and also the topic "going sugar free" isn't the same as what I've posted above, about scientific fraud.

It may or may not inspire people to "go sugar free".

Stu

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Reply # 1628788 13-Sep-2016 18:03

The topic 'Sugar' probably isn't enough to indicate what the discussion is actually about. Have added 'research' but can change again if you have something more suitable.

Keep calm, and carry on posting.

Fred99

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Reply # 1630764 15-Sep-2016 10:59

Perhaps "industry-funded scientific fraud".

This is a little different from previous explanation about how this huge disaster WRT human nutrition was made - that an innocent mistake was made evaluating epidemiological evidence. It started with - or was aided by - deliberate fraud. I'm sure that some folks for an assortment of reasons suspect that the anti-sugar movement is "conspiracy theory". In this case there damned well was a conspiracy, the consequence of which probably has a cost of many millions of lives and trillions of dollars.

Fred99

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Reply # 1631394 15-Sep-2016 23:05

To put the scale of the issue in proportion, NZ is in a reasonably unique situation in that *all sugar is imported. Volume of imports of sugar and confectionary YTD June 2016 was 316,385,305 kg. Thats a per-capita import of about 190g per person per day.

(*with the exception of de-flavoured fruit "juice" used for what it is - a sugar syrup, locally produced honey etc)

From that you can reasonably assume that the average NZ intake of sugar is about 4x WHO guidelines for maximum added sugar, about 8x WHO recommended for additional benefit guideline of 25g max per person per day. But note:

That excludes all the imported high added sugar imports, biscuits, beverages etc, which would surely exceed exports of such products. Yes there will be anomalies, but it's a good enough "ball park" in my opinion to suggest that we have a serious problem.

USDA and the US CDC suggest that average intake in the US is only about half that. I do not believe the USDA / CDC data at all. It's based solely on "in-person 24-hour dietary recall interview" . People lie in dietary surveys - it's a extremely poor method to collect data.

timmmay

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Reply # 1631441 16-Sep-2016 07:03

I never understood why people only care about *added* sugar. Sugar is sugar, whether it's refined, from fruit, etc. Fructose from fruit is worse than glucose, according to a rather convincing book I read.

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Fred99

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Reply # 1631548 16-Sep-2016 09:47

timmmay:

I never understood why people only care about *added* sugar. Sugar is sugar, whether it's refined, from fruit, etc. Fructose from fruit is worse than glucose, according to a rather convincing book I read.

I agree - which means slightly disagreeing with the Royal Society press release a couple of days ago, and WHO.

People are concerned about sugar. You can already see the result of this shift in the market on supermarket shelves, in the breakfast food and beverage aisles. Product is being put on shelves with "natural" and "no added sugar" labels, the sugar content is just being substituted with fruit juice, probably including de-flavoured apple juice etc. then baked dry. Total sugar content is still high. If only added sugar (not total sugar) is to be disclosed, the food manufacturers will just adapt - and they know that adding sugar boosts sales. If you had a bowl of no added sugar cereal and a glass of no added sugar orange juice for brekky, you'd have probably exceeded sensible guidelines for total daily intake of fructose at the start of your day, but under WHO (and Royal Society) guidelines your intake of "added" sugar would be zero.

The links between disease and excess fructose intake are very compelling. The Royal Society press release even includes gout, this from NZ research which I haven't seen reported in general media overseas - nor widely here in NZ. That's yet another disease where once that's determined as it appears they have been, the pieces fall together. Anomalies in correlations when attempting to find a causal link with "other" dietary or lifestyle factors start disappearing.

MikeAqua

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Reply # 1631605 16-Sep-2016 10:52

Fructose in fruit is bound up with a whole lot of fibre and other compounds that make it harder to breakdown and consequently increase its glycemic index and lower it's net calorie yield.

You are still better off eating an apple than the equivalent amount of fructose in a processed food or blending the apple in your ninja blender and smashing up all the fibre. Also chewing the apple is likely to make you feel full faster.

High fructose corn syrup (widely used as an added sugar) is nasty stuff, best avoided altogether.

Mike

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Reply # 1631622 16-Sep-2016 11:03

By the way no research is ever truly free from bias. There are experts with an axe to grind on both sides of most issues and also researchers are prone to subconscious bias.

Human nutrition is an especially flakey topic because it is so hard to get good data.

People are not lab mice. There are many confounding variables and lifestyle factors you can't control for and people are inaccurate/dishonest when recording what they eat/drink/do.

Mike

Fred99

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Reply # 1631698 16-Sep-2016 12:31

MikeAqua:

Fructose in fruit is bound up with a whole lot of fibre and other compounds that make it harder to breakdown and consequently increase its glycemic index and lower it's net calorie yield.

The overall glycemic index might vary due to overall content of the apple, but the soluble sugars which are there will go into the bloodstream almost instantly, unless you swallow your apples whole.

Not saying "apples are bad" here, but you're probably not going to eat then 6 at a time - except that's what you're probably achieving if knocking back a glass of apple juice (or "just juice" type product using a de-flavoured apple juice base). One of the reasons apples are "low GI" is because of the high fructose content.

I suggest for non-diabetics (or those without specific dietary requirements) completely forget "GI Index". It's of no practical use and potentially very misleading - for example sucrose is medium GI. glucose is high GI, and fructose itself is considered to have the lowest GI of natural sugars. If you believe the GI myth, then fructose is "good" (compared to other sugars) - when it most certainly isn't.

dipkiwi

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Reply # 1632313 17-Sep-2016 20:39

I'm not surprised at all. There has been so much questionable "evidence based guidelines" that has been fed to the public that later on turns out to be incorrect. ie the whole dietary cholesterol/eggs thing. The margarines of the 1980s that was supposedly good for us but riddled with artificial trans fats at the time. Whereas now the FDA is moving to a total ban of all artificial trans fats in food.

John Yudkin's book 'Pure White and Deadly' in the 70's predicted a lot of what has come to pass now.

One of Yudkin's critics back then who publicly debated him on BBC television and tried to discredit him was a young Professor Jim Mann. Jim Mann is still a professor at Otago university and has held many official public health positions including diabetes prevention. He was also once on the advisory committee for the sugar association. Jim Mann has been at the forefront of pushing low-fat dietary advice to the public over the last 40 years.

Interestingly the chief editor of BMJ recognises the problem of bad science been fed to the public.

The ramifications of this are huge.

dipkiwi

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Reply # 1632314 17-Sep-2016 20:53

Fred99:

The Royal Society press release even includes gout, this from NZ research which I haven't seen reported in general media overseas - nor widely here in NZ. That's yet another disease where once that's determined as it appears they have been, the pieces fall together.

Yes...

biochem.otago.ac.nz/our-people/academic-teaching-staff/tony-merriman/gout/

dipkiwi

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Reply # 1632315 17-Sep-2016 21:06

Even just recently there was a couple of Sydney University professors who published the 'Australian paradox' paper claiming sugar consumption in Australia had gone down while obesity had gone up, so sugar couldn't be to blame.

Be sure to watch this 17 minute ABC programme.

Fred99

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Reply # 1632369 18-Sep-2016 08:30

dipkiwi:

Fred99:

The Royal Society press release even includes gout, this from NZ research which I haven't seen reported in general media overseas - nor widely here in NZ. That's yet another disease where once that's determined as it appears they have been, the pieces fall together.

Yes...

biochem.otago.ac.nz/our-people/academic-teaching-staff/tony-merriman/gout/

That contains a link to US reports where the sugar was HFCS. I'm somewhat skeptical - that the (cane) sugar industry has been demonising HFCS - pushing sugar as a more natural sweetener. However the usual grade of HFCS used is 55% fructose / 45% glucose, it's added on a dry basis ratio in soft drinks etc about the same as cane sugar, as far as I'm concerned, it's close enough to the same. Yet I've heard the comment many times - "HFCS is bad" hence obesity/diabetes "metabolic syndrome" rates in the USA, but "it's OK in NZ - because we don't use HFCS as a sweetener".

"Today we eat about 50 times more sugar and fructose than 100 years ago"

Unless you were wealthy 100+ years ago, and luxury foods like sugar and honey were affordable enough to be consumed in volume. Gout was even called "rich man's disease".

dipkiwi

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Reply # 1635801 19-Sep-2016 12:20

Radio New Zealand interview with the researcher that uncovered the paper trail...

www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/201816462/how-the-sugar-industry-downplayed-links-to-heart-disease

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