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from the no-sugar-tonight-in-our-coffee dept.
Conspiracies aren't real, are they?
The Sugar Research Foundation paid Harvard researchers $6,500 (2016 equivalent: $48,900) to write a literature review, published in 1967, that downplayed sugar's links to heart disease. One of the researchers went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States Department of Agriculture:
Back in the 1960s, a sugar industry executive wrote fat checks to a group of Harvard researchers so that they'd downplay the links between sugar and heart disease in a prominent medical journal—and the researchers did it, according to historical documents reported Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine [open, DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.5394].
One of those Harvard researchers went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States Department of Agriculture, where he set the stage for the federal government's current dietary guidelines. All in all, the corrupted researchers and skewed scientific literature successfully helped draw attention away from the health risks of sweets and shift the blame solely to fats—for nearly five decades. The low-fat, high-sugar diets that health experts subsequently encouraged are now seen as a main driver of the current obesity epidemic.
The bitter revelations come from archived documents from the Sugar Research Foundation (now the Sugar Association), dug up by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco. Their dive into the old, sour affair highlights both the perils of trusting industry-sponsored research to inform policy and the importance of requiring scientists to disclose conflicts of interest—something that didn't become the norm until years later. Perhaps most strikingly, it spotlights the concerning power of the sugar industry.
See the accompanying editorial: Food Industry Funding of Nutrition Research: The Relevance of History for Current Debates (open, DOI: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.5400) (DX)
(Score: 2) by opinionated_science on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:01PM
that pyramid thing....had carbs on the bottom.
It's amazing in 2016 how much dogma there is - I guess that's the problem when school stops at 16/18/....
A nice point made by Ken Robinson on Ted "In the most interactive age of our history, we are pushing kids out by data of manufacture". I'm paraphrasing but you get the drift...
Put simply. Where you get your information from determines who's bias is on it and their agenda. The fact the FDA is involved in drugs and food is fine as far as safety and quality. But they should have no role in quantity, it's a clear conflict of interest.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 13 2016, @11:30PM
It's amazing in 2016 how much dogma there is - I guess that's the problem when school stops at 16/18/....
To be honest, most people aren't cut out for formal education beyond that (and perhaps even somewhat before that), because their main priority seems to be making money rather than getting a top-class education. Trade schools are another thing.
Besides, schools are unnecessary for many subjects in the 21st century. Self-learning is more possible than ever. Rather than bemoaning the fact that schooling stops at 16/18, you should bemoan the fact that education stops around that time, or more accurately, education never happened in the first place since schools offer an abysmal-quality education.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @12:56AM
I think you are on to something there. Maybe we should really bemoan the fact that the education of most stops right after graduation from high school or college, if it had ever begun at all. No, I'm not urging everyone to continue on to a graduate or professional degree. Rather, it seems to me that people should be urged to make self-education a life-long endeavour. Why stop learning once you have graduated? Is there really nothing more for you to learn once you have that diploma? Did school never really awaken in you an urge to explore further, even if it was merely for your own edification? Are there really so few who take the learning skills they acquired in their education and apply them to new areas of study after they have graduated? Maybe we should start a new mini-revolution. The next time you are at a party and making small talk, instead of discussing sports, or politics, or the weather, or the antics of celebrities, or whatever, maybe...just perhaps...we should ask our conversation partners about what new and interesting things they have learned lately. These days, continuing that self-education is easier than ever. So much is on-line now, a lot of it completely free; it's a waste not to take advantage of it. Just an idea.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:02AM
FTFY. Yes, there is a difference between getting an education and getting a certificate that says you are "educated". It may be subtle, but the difference is there. And, yes, it does tie back in to making money.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by edIII on Wednesday September 14 2016, @01:34AM
No, they should be involved in quantity too. While an interesting point about the conflict of interest, review it from a technical perspective.
It's all corrupt. The FDA recommends an "allowance" for mercury in our food that is approx. twice that of the EPA. These are both quantities in that both organizations have recommended no more than x parts per billion. Although with mercury the EPA was quick to point out that there was no SAFE threshold for mercury in the body, just like there wasn't actually any safe threshold for lead in the body (Keyhoe is burning in Hell for stating otherwise against known science).
How can two government organizations not agree on the quantity again? That's right! Only the FDA governs food, and they were the only ones requiring a bribe to get Tuna not taken off the market. Which there should be no tuna allowed on market... according to the EPA. Yet not only is it still on the market, but the industry sued the state of California and blocked them from putting warnings on the cans.
There is definitely a reason to want them to stop screwing with quantity, and that is the quantities recommended being corrupt and derived by junk science itself having a genesis of pure avarice. In that light, I don't think we need to be complaining about the quantities being recommended, but we need to be complaining about the science itself and that policies are inconsistent across government when scientifically based policies need to be universally enforced.
The conflict of interests occur purely because men and women that should be responsible scientists and administrators guided by moral and ethical principles to serve humanity serve avaricious executives first, and the willfully blind shareholders INSTEAD.
We've never had an FDA that served the people, or a scientific community that does either. That's what this article tells me.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by opinionated_science on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:17AM
Well for food, the technology is widespread and available. Build a ton of clinics with treadmills, CO2/O2 measurment equipment, and give everyone a free test every year or so. Well at least 18,21,25,30,35.... For children we have to be careful not to interfere with natural development, so this methodology would not be appropriate.
I have a friend (6'1", was 280 lbs) that lost 100 lbs in 18 months by getting his metabolism measured - 1200 kCals, and adapted his diet to match.
Everyone can get a personal kCal number to do what they want - but here's the rub - it's an objective, repeatable , known quantity. No guessing FDA daily rates, a real number for every person alive. There will be those in denial (like the smokers today), but the science is done. The vast majority of the population could be given sufficient information to manage themselves. And probably as we learn more, we will find the medical "edge" cases that have specific problems making it hard to gain healthy equilibrium.
My preference is to burn an extra 3-4kCals/week to make the equations easier to balance!
(Score: 2) by edIII on Wednesday September 14 2016, @02:42AM
I completely agree with you. The FDA should adopt the stance of explaining the equations and that people should be measured. All charts are approximations, or even better, averages of actual reports and demographics. That would be useful.
Thanks for the tip.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.