Big Sugar and Heart Disease

This link: UCSF Study will take you to an article titled:

UCSF reveals how sugar industry influenced national conversation on heart disease written by Elizabeth Fernandez , UC San Francisco Monday, September 12, 2016

The article opens with the following:

A newly discovered cache of industry documents revealed that the sugar industry began working closely with nutrition scientists in the mid-1960s to single out fat and cholesterol as the dietary causes of coronary heart disease and to downplay evidence that sucrose consumption was also a risk factor.

An analysis of those papers by researchers at UC San Francisco appears Sept. 12 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The article then continues to show how the media attention to the heart disease risks of sucrose consumption was buried and derailed by a Harvard "literature review" debunking any connection between sugar and heart disease and asserting that reducing cholesterol and saturated fat were the only dietary changes needed to prevent coronary heart disease. That literature review was, of course, bought and paid for big sugar.

To conduct the literature review, the sugar industry paid the Harvard scientists the equivalent of $50,000 in 2016 dollars, then set the review's objective, contributed articles to be included, and received drafts. Yet the industry's funding and role were not disclosed in the final NEJM publication.

There is more in the article about the influence of big sugar, and the effect on health policy. It is a short, but very worthwhile read telling us something that, if we had been asked, we'd have guessed, but having it documented is so much better than guessing or assuming. The call (by Big Sugar) for the literature review debunking it came at a time when sugar was under scrutiny as a probably medical problem. Such scrutiny was thereby forestalled, but is rearing its head yet again lately, and the denial is already flowing. Expect more well funded exculpatory studies and reviews.

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is there's so much BS out there. There's an explanation on YouTube's sci show channel, I think it was. Did locate a Forbe's article easily enough:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/henrymiller/2014/01/08/the-trouble-with-scie...
When up to 90% of published studies are unreplicatable anyone would be cautious.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

It was funded (at a legitimate University) by the Morton Salt Company! It claimed Americans' medical problems would disappear if we just doubled our salt consumption.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

Crider's picture

to the Salt Institute's website and it was shocking to me. I don't know why I didn't expect something like it, but it makes the fossil-fuel industry climate deniers seem tame by comparison. We humans love our salt and, through our food culture maintained by big business, it kills us.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8-qkrenQr0]

So, for a 62 year old guy like me to be very healthy, it's no salt, no sugar, no animal products, and no oil! But I get plenty of hot sauce, spices, vinegar. And as much expensive fruit as I want. It's definitely worth it.

We have the animal products industry pounding on the sugar industry by using stories like the sugar thing to promote high fat eating. And the sugar industry pounding on the animal products industry over their cholesterol problem.

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I'm a few years younger but after having a heart attack and double by - pass surgery at age 51 I stopped eating meat, cut my salt and sugar intake significantly and the only oils are expeller pressed organic (mostly olive oil) and I have never felt better. I try to avoid anything from the factory farms that poison the land our produce and us, also the factory farm animal slaughter houses are inhumane and are helping to destroy the atmosphere and are a major contributor to climate change due to methane released from tons of feces.

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My Italian ancestors lived to very advanced ages on olive oil, tomatoes, cheese, peppers, other vegetables, red wine, and only a small amount of pork sausage, often homemade.

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I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

would mail your cholesterol count when you donated. I really like eggs but when I got married my wife cut me off eggs so I'd live longer. RC sent my chlor count and it was good. The wife let me have eggs. Next donation my chlor count was better, so I got to eat more eggs. The next donation chlor count was better yet, so the wife just get up.
No two people are the same so blanket statements rely on probability and statistics. And everyone knows statistics is history and probility is fantasy. While a good way to hedge your bets, neither will tell you definitively what will happen.

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There is no such thing as TMI. It can always be held in reserve for extortion.

WaveyDavey's picture

Sugar is the only item that does not specify a Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA). The sugar industry is very powerful in the USA. They obfuscate and obstruct anything that may cast their product in a negative light. The fact there is no RDA for sugar has nothing to do with any complications, as fats and proteins also have complications, and everything to do with sugar industry lobbying. If there was a sugar RDA I think the majority of products would be above the RDA. As such the guidelines around sugar have stalled at the very weak 'consume in moderation' statement, without any definition of what moderation may actually be.

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