Dietary Guidelines and SugarSince it was first published in the 1980s, the Department of Health and Human Services-sponsored “Dietary Guidelines for Americans”, has been widely consulted by consumers as an authoritative and unbiased “go-to source for nutrition advice.”
Yet, while many scholarly studies as early as the 1960s had identified sugar as a potentially dangerous contributor to heart disease and early death rates, this and other benchmark nutritional guideposts have largely downplayed the dangers of excess sugar consumption – particularly its risks to heart health – until well into this millennium.
The reason for the seemingly overt and troubling mischaracterization? Sugar industry-funded research strategically shifted the blame to fats and cholesterol, according to a new paper published in JAMA Internal Medicine last month.
A set of documents recently uncovered by researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) shows that beginning in 1965, a trade group for the sugar industry paid three influential nutrition professors at Harvard University to deliberately call into question the association between sugar and heart disease.
Part of the effort – that now appears as more public relations “spin” than a fact-finding mission – took the form of a major literature review, published in two parts in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1967.
In that review, the Harvard professors – who were paid roughly $50,000 in today’s dollars by the Sugar Research Foundation for their work – apparently picked through implicating studies and refuted key findings so that the role of sugar in the development of heart disease was minimized while the role of fat was overstated.
Because the review came from such respected academics, it helped to shape dietary recommendations for decades — with a host of undesirable results. Many health officials and others believe that the skewed picture painted about the role of sugar in our diets has been a major factor in the obesity and diabetes epidemics. In short, it not only shifted health policy, but it also helped to entrench public opinion and eating practices that have had large-scale impacts.
“We have to ask ourselves how many lives and dollars could have been saved, and how different today’s health picture would be, if the industry were not manipulating science in this way,” Jim Krieger, executive director of Health Food America, said in a reaction to the new paper. “Only 50 years later are we waking up to the true harm from sugar. Yet industry continues to use its time-honored tactics of creating doubt about valid science they deem damaging to its bottom line…”
Americans consume 30 percent more sugar daily now than three decades ago, according to the Obesity Society. And reports indicate that children in the U.S. eat three times as much added sugar as they should.
The Harvard researchers’ financial ties to the Sugar Research Foundation, now known as the Sugar Association, were not revealed in the influential 1967 journal article. In fairness, that journal did not require such disclosures until 1984.
But what is very clear from this latest examination of more than 340 pieces of communication between Harvard scholars and sugar industry leaders is that “Big Sugar” conflated research efforts in a variety of ways: it set the researchers’ objectives, contributed articles to be included in the literature review results, and failed to disclose its role and funding for the studies.
In some letters to the Harvard professors, sugar trade association executives not only pointed out specific concerns about how certain scientific findings would hamper sucrose and carbohydrate consumption – and thus product sales – it suggested which conclusions would be pleasing and worth their support.
By directing scientific findings in this way, the industry helped to set in motion a low-fat diet trend across the country in which the sugar industry thrived. Food makers began replacing fat with sugar without much scrutiny or question – which is exactly what the industry had hoped for. Just last year, it was revealed that the Sugar Research Foundation similarly downplayed the role of sugar in tooth decay.
The practice and impact of, industry-funded research continue today. And is not just the domain of big food trade associations. In 2015, Coca-Cola drew significant criticism for donating $1.5 million to a nutrition nonprofit, while denying its influence in the inner workings of the organization.
Both Coca-Cola and sugar industry executives have yielded that they should have acted with greater transparency when it came to their involvement in nutrition research and policy initiatives. But much of the damage done by sugar lobbyists has already been done.
As noted in earlier posts on this blog, most of us have a sweet tooth, and sugary treats can be part of a balanced approach to eating – in smaller amounts and on special occasions. But too much sugar on a regular basis throws our metabolic and energy levels out of balance and can make a variety of health issues more likely. Like it or not, as the old adage suggests, everything in moderation seems to be the best approach to health and longevity.
So what steps can we take to manage sugar in our diets? One of the easiest ways to cut down on sugar and fructose consumption is to eat whole foods simply, as most of the added sugar we ingest comes from processed foods. Other ways to cut down on the sugary stuff from day to day includes:
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