what does sugar do to your body harvard

A newly discovered cache of internal documents reveals that the sugar industry downplayed the risks of sugar in the 1960s. Luis Ascui/Getty Images hide caption

toggle caption

Luis Ascui/Getty Images

A newly discovered cache of internal documents reveals that the sugar industry downplayed the risks of saccharide in the 1960s.

Luis Ascui/Getty Images

In the 1960s, the carbohydrate industry funded research that downplayed the risks of sugar and highlighted the hazards of fat, according to a newly published article in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The article draws on internal documents to show that an industry grouping chosen the Saccharide Inquiry Foundation wanted to "refute" concerns about sugar's possible function in heart illness. The SRF then sponsored research by Harvard scientists that did just that. The result was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967, with no disclosure of the sugar industry funding.

The carbohydrate-funded project in question was a literature review, examining a multifariousness of studies and experiments. It suggested in that location were major bug with all the studies that implicated sugar, and concluded that cutting fat out of American diets was the best way to address coronary heart disease.

The authors of the new article say that for the past five decades, the sugar industry has been attempting to influence the scientific contend over the relative risks of saccharide and fat.

"It was a very smart thing the sugar industry did, because review papers, peculiarly if you get them published in a very prominent journal, tend to shape the overall scientific discussion," co-author Stanton Glantz told The New York Times.

Money on the line

In the article, published Mon, authors Glantz, Cristin Kearns and Laura Schmidt aren't trying make the example for a link betwixt sugar and coronary centre disease. Their interest is in the process. They say the documents reveal the carbohydrate manufacture attempting to influence scientific inquiry and debate.

The researchers note that they worked under some limitations — "We could non interview key actors involved in this historical episode considering they have died," they write. Other organizations were also advocating concerns nearly fatty, they note.

At that place's no evidence that the SRF direct edited the manuscript published by the Harvard scientists in 1967, but there is "coexisting" evidence that the interests of the sugar lobby shaped the conclusions of the review, the researchers say.

For one thing, there'southward motivation and intent. In 1954, the researchers note, the president of the SRF gave a speech communication describing a great concern opportunity.

If Americans could be persuaded to eat a lower-fat diet — for the sake of their health — they would need to replace that fat with something else. America's per capita saccharide consumption could go up by a third.

But in the '60s, the SRF became aware of "flowing reports that sugar is a less desirable dietary source of calories than other carbohydrates," as John Hickson, SRF vice president and director of research, put it in one document.

He recommended that the industry fund its own studies — "Then we can publish the data and abnegate our detractors."

The next twelvemonth, after several scientific articles were published suggesting a link between sucrose and coronary center disease, the SRF canonical the literature-review project. It wound upwards paying approximately $50,000 in today's dollars for the research.

Ane of the researchers was the chairman of Harvard's Public Health Nutrition Department — and an ad hoc member of SRF'due south board.

"A dissimilar standard" for different studies

Glantz, Kearns and Schmidt say many of the articles examined in the review were manus-selected past SRF, and information technology was implied that the saccharide industry would expect them to be critiqued.

In a alphabetic character, SRF's Hickson said that the system's "particular interest" was in evaluating studies focused on "carbohydrates in the form of sucrose."

"We are well aware," ane of the scientists replied, "and volition cover this as well equally we can."

The project wound up taking longer than expected, because more than and more than studies were being released that suggested sugar might exist linked to coronary centre disease. But information technology was finally published in 1967.

Hickson was certainly happy with the result: "Let me assure y'all this is quite what we had in mind and we look forrard to its appearance in print," he told i of the scientists.

The review minimized the significance of research that suggested saccharide could play a office in coronary heart affliction. In some cases the scientists alleged investigator incompetence or flawed methodology.

"It is always appropriate to question the validity of individual studies," Kearns told Bloomberg via email. Just, she says, "the authors practical a different standard" to unlike studies — looking very critically at research that implicated sugar, and ignoring bug with studies that found dangers in fat.

Epidemiological studies of carbohydrate consumption — which look at patterns of wellness and disease in the existent world — were dismissed for having as well many possible factors getting in the way. Experimental studies were dismissed for being too unlike to real life.

1 study that constitute a health benefit when people ate less sugar and more than vegetables was dismissed because that dietary modify was not feasible.

Some other 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."

The Harvard researchers then turned to studies that examined risks of fat — which included the same kind of epidemiological studies they had dismissed when it came to sugar.

Citing "few study characteristics and no quantitative results," every bit Kearns, Glantz and Schmidt put it, they concluded that cut out fatty was "no doubt" the best dietary intervention to foreclose coronary heart illness.

Sugar lobby: "Transparency standards were not the norm"

In a statement, the Sugar Association — which evolved out of the SRF — said it is challenging to comment on events from so long ago.

"We acknowledge that the Sugar Research Foundation should take exercised greater transparency in all of its research activities, however, when the studies in question were published funding disclosures and transparency standards were not the norm they are today," the association said.

"Generally speaking, it is not only unfortunate but a disservice that industry-funded research is branded as tainted," the statement continues. "What is oft missing from the dialogue is that industry-funded inquiry has been informative in addressing key bug."

The documents in question are v decades onetime, simply the larger issue is of the moment, every bit Marion Nestle notes in a commentary in the aforementioned outcome of JAMA Internal Medicine:

"Is it really truthful that nutrient companies deliberately set out to manipulate research in their favor? Aye, information technology is, and the practise continues. In 2015, the New York Times obtained emails revealing Coca-Cola'due south cozy relationships with sponsored researchers who were conducting studies aimed at minimizing the effects of sugary drinks on obesity. Fifty-fifty more recently, the Associated Press obtained emails showing how a candy trade association funded and influenced studies to evidence that children who consume sweets have healthier trunk weights than those who do non."

As for the article authors who dug into the documents around this funding, they offer two suggestions for the future.

"Policymaking committees should consider giving less weight to food manufacture-funded studies," they write.

They also call for new inquiry into any ties between added sugars and coronary eye illness.

prestonwaythe.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat