Sugar industry paid off scientists based on evidence dug up from documents regarding correspondence involving manufacturers and several scientific researchers regarding the causes of heart disease.
Sugar industry paid off scientists to put blame off sugar
A group known as the Sugar Association was believed to be responsible back in 1964 for subverting results of scientific reviews by several Harvard scientists and took active participation in the drafting and publication of the results that the only way to stave off heart disease is to reduce cholesterol and saturated fat, with attempts to downplay the effects of sugar in the disease.
The investigators uncovered public archives that point to this fiasco titled Project 226 that was allegedly a research funded by the Sugar Association, details of which involved paying Harvard University researchers with an amount equivalent to today’s value of $48,900.
The deal was to have the group review scientific literature, provided materials for review and copies of the drafts of the study results prior to publication.
There was even a suggestive note in one of the communication dispatches that says “let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind and we look forward to its appearance in print’ from one of the members of the group to pone of the study authors.
Surprisingly, when the study was published back in 1967 in the New England Journal of Medicine there was no reference to the Sugar Association or any one of its members linking them to the research in any capacity.
The discovery was published recently in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Gospel truth
The study became one of the scientific backbones that led to the popular belief that sugar had no significant impact on heart disease and it was mostly due to high cholesterol and fat levels in
the body.
Fortunately, numerous studies are seeing a shift towards sugar as a major culprit in the development of heart disease and several other health problems including diabetes and obesity.
‘Tainted ‘ results
“Food company sponsorship, whether or not intentionally manipulative, undermines public trust in nutrition science,” wrote Marion Nestle, a longtime staunch critic of industry funding of science.
Sugar linked to evidence of increasing risk of heart disease
Health experts agree that it has been a long-fought struggle to educate the public about the dangers linked to the consumption of soda and other sugary beverages the increases the risk of diseases. One of the recent findings involved a link between soda consumption and gallbladder cancer.
A research undertaken by the Karolinska Institute of Sweden studied the drinking and eating habits of some 70,000 Swedish adults and tracked their conditions for more than 13 years to see if they develop health conditions as a result of their dietary habits.
Over the course of the study, the found that 150 of the test participants developed biliary tract or gallbladder cancers.
Basis for the study
Lead study author Susanna Larsson says that little is known about the cause of gallbladder or biliary tract tumours, but there is clear evidencing linking high sugar consumption causing obesity that result in diabetes and other diseases.
Sodas and other drinks with high sugar content have long been linked to high blood sugar and weight gain.
Study findings
As researchers analyzed the findings which corroborated that test participants who consumed two or more sodas or juice drinks daily, even those that have artificial sweeteners had twice the risk of having gallbladder tumors and almost 80% of them were likely to develop biliary tract cancer.
“Soda consumption has been inconsistently associated with risk of biliary tract cancer (only one prior study) and other cancers in previous similar studies,” says Larsson. “This is the first study to show a strong link between consumption of sweetened beverages, such as soda, and risk of biliary tract cancer.”
Sodas and non alcoholic beverages a billion dollar industry
Despite mounting evidence linking soda and sugary beverage consumption can lead to negative effects on health, health experts agree that the impact of education and awareness drives will remain to be an uphill battle.
In the United States alone, sales of non-alcoholic beverages, including soda and other sugary drinks amounted to $35.89 billion in 2015 and is expected to increase to $38.33 billion by the end of 2016, which is an indication that the volume is still moving up.
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