Sugar industry ‘paid scientists to blame heart disease on fat NOT sugar’
New report suggests the Sugar Research Foundation funded a 1967 study, but failed to disclose its involvement
The sugar industry funded scientific research that downplayed the risk of heart disease from eating too much sugar, a new report claims.
Rather, dietary fat was vilified as the number one enemy to a healthy heart, scientists said.
Authors of the report, published today by the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, looked back through archival documents to examine the role of the sugar industry in coronary heart disease research.
The findings point to industry-sponsored research that influenced the scientific debate, casting doubt on the hazards of sugar, instead putting forward fat as the culprit in heart disease.
Led by Dr Stanton Glantz, researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, looked at internal documents from the Sugar Research Foundation - now known as the Sugar Association.
They analysed historical reports and other material to create a chronological case study.
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The documents included correspondence between the Sugar Research Foundation and a Harvard University professor of nutrition who was co-director of the foundation's first coronary heart disease research programme in the 1960s.
The foundation launched its coronary heart disease research in 1965.
The first project was a review published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967.
The review focused on fat and cholesterol as the dietary cause of coronary heart disease, while downplayed sugar consumption as a risk factor.
The Sugar Research Foundation set the review's objective, contributed articles to be included and received drafts of the study.
But, the foundation's funding of the project and role were not disclosed, according to today's report.
Dr Glantz and colleagues note: "This historical account of industry efforts demonstrates the importance of having reviews written by people without conflicts of interest and the need for financial disclosure."
The authors do point out the New England Journal of Medicine does require authors to disclose all conflicts of interest, but adds those rules were introduced in 1984.
Dr Glantz's team also note there is no direct evidence that the sugar industry wrote or changed the manuscript that was published in the NEJM, and evidence that the industry shaped its conclusions is circumstantial, they acknowledge.
This study suggests that the sugar industry sponsored its first coronary heart disease research project in 1965 to downplay early warning signs that sucrose consumption was a risk factor in heart disease
Report authors
Limitations of the article include that the papers and documents used in the research provide only a small view into the activities of one sugar industry trade group.
The authors did not analyse the role of other organisations, nutrition leaders or food industries.
And key figures in the historical episode detailed in this article could not be interviewed because they have died.
The report concludes: "This study suggests that the sugar industry sponsored its first coronary heart disease research project in 1965 to downplay early warning signs that sucrose consumption was a risk factor in heart disease.
"As of 2016, sugar control policies are being promulgated in international, federal, state and local venues.
"Yet coronary heart disease risk is inconsistently cited as a health consequence of added sugars consumption.
"Because coronary heart disease is the leading cause of death globally, the health community should ensure that its risk is evaluated in future risk assessments of added sugars.
"Policymaking committees should consider giving less weight to food industry-funded studies, and include mechanistic and animal studies as well as studies appraising the effect of added sugars on multiple coronary heart disease biomarkers and disease development."
Dr Marion Nestle, of New York University, said in a related commentary on the new report, that while the 50-year-old study "may seem like ancient history", it is "quite relevant, not least because it answers some questions germane to our current era".
"The authors have done the nutrition science community a great public service by bringing this historical example to light," she said.
"May it serve as a warning not only to policymakers, but also to researchers, clinicians, peer reviewers, journal editors, and journalists of the need to consider the harm to scientific credibility and public health when dealing with studies funded by food companies with vested interests in the results - and to find better ways to fund such studies and to prevent, disclose and manage potentially conflicted interests."
A spokesman for the Sugar Association - formerly the Sugar Research Foundation - added: "We acknowledge that the Sugar Research Foundation should have 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.
"Generally speaking, it is not only unfortunate but a disservice that industry-funded research is branded as tainted. What is often missing from the dialogue is that industry-funded research has been informative in addressing key issues."