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Sugar Industry Bought Off Scientists, Skewed Dietary Guidelines For Decades (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: 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the links between sugar and heart disease in a prominent medical journal -- and the researchers did it, according to historical documents reported Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. 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 to 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. In a statement also issued today, the Sugar Association acknowledged that it "should have exercised greater transparency in all of its research activities." However, the trade-group went on to question the UCSF researchers' motives in digging up the issue and reframing the past events to "conveniently align with the currently trending anti-sugar narrative." The association also chastised the journal for publishing the historical analysis, which it implied was insignificant and sensationalist. "Most concerning is the growing use of headline-baiting articles to trump quality scientific research -- we're disappointed to see a journal of JAMA's stature being drawn into this trend," the association wrote. But scientists disagree with that take. In an accompanying editorial, nutrition professor Marion Nestle of New York University argued that "this 50-year-old incident may seem like ancient history, but it is quite relevant, not least because it answers some questions germane to our current era."
What with the push by the FDA not to eat bacon and eggs in favor of vegetable oils and the creation of millions of diabetics by overloading their systems with sugar it is surprising any of us still live. We were made to eat meat, that is the bottom line.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
High fructose corn syrup even worse. And it's not just fructose and glucose.
That 42/58 and 55/45 is a bulk culinary description, the truth is there is about 3-5 percent saccharide polymers plus leftover reagents (which until very recently even included mercury)
Food for thought: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Except that the hockeystick has been verified time and time again by actual scientists (Not conservative blog barkers like watts/etc, but actual scientists) using multiple datasets. You guys seem to leave that detail out that its not just the bogey-mann and his one paper but countless studies across the world using ice core data, satelite data, geological data, tree ring data (to a point) , ground stations and so on. All point to precisely the same dataset.
I mean seriously, can we stop pretending these industry talking points are actually science when the evidence is so vastly against them. We *know* temperatures are rising, and we *know* they are being forced by human activities. This isn't scientiific conjecture anymore. We've understood the science behind it since the 1800s when scientists first started connecting rising temperatures with the coal fumes being churned out en masse by the industrial revolution, and now those scientific principles have been falsified by a century of broadly repeeted and verified checks? What more could you possibly ask out of physics than that it follows the scientific method. And yet here on Slashdot people still drag out the long discredited clap-trap about "The hockey stick is wrong!". No it isn't, and if you disagree, its only because you are wrong.
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
If you haven't seen them, you should go watch the documentary films King Corn and Food, Inc. King Corn in particular goes into detail about the transition in the US from a diet with lots of fat and lower levels of sugar into one where eating fat is evil and will send you to hell and not eating sugar is evil and will send you to hell.
Food, Inc is more general but it shows clearly why food production in the US is so screwed up.
We all remember the incredibly eye-opening lecture named "Sugar: the bitter truth" from almost a decade ago. Robert Lustig, the presenter, is an Emeritus Professor at surprise surprise UCSF!
The Sugar Association is full of it when blaming the researchers of bias.
I don't know much about gene research, but I know you'll be hard pressed to find a reputable scientist in Europe that considers global warming a myth. Likewise, you won't find one that will do anything but laugh at you if you use "creation" and "science" in the same sentence without a "not" somewhere in there.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yes, there was a flaw in a scientific paper. People err. This flaw was corrected, but what was never updated was the accusation. You are basing your claim on false data.
Glycogen is the way our body stores sugar in the muscles and in the liver. Glucose is the type of sugar that gets converted into energy in the cells. All other types of sugar require some effort and lots of enzymes in our digestive system. If some of the enzymes are missing, our body can't use that special type of sugar. But the gut bacteria can, and their metabolism can upsed our digestive system. That's what lactose intolerance means for instance. High fructose corn syrup means that we get a lot of a type of sugar we can't use directly: Fructose. It has to be metabolized in the liver into glucose, and it thus avoids the insulin control system which normally would control the glucose level. In time, cells might get less and less responsive to the insulin signalization, and we get Diabetes II. The effect is less strong with saccharose, the normal white sugar, as its molecules are made up of a pair of glucose and fructose. Thus normal white sugar causes an insulin answer, but not as strong as pure glucose. Thus white sugar is not as dangerous for the insulin system as fructose. Starch in turn consists of long chains of glucose, and it thus causes the full insuline answer, and thus in itself not a thread to the insulin system.
Back on topic. You'll probably find a bunch sponsored by the industry finding both are equally bad.
Here's one from nih:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...
Here's one from harvard:
http://www.health.harvard.edu/...
Well okay, seeing as how I'm part of that 'science industry' as you put it, your claim is interesting if true. Let's see here, the first study detected proteins at a level lower than that test can accurately detect (ergo it was noise), the second one doesn't seem to indicate anything special about GE crops, the third one is mere correlation by a known liar with a made up institute (you could use that exact same bogus methodology to link those maladies with organic food sales), the fourth one has been widely debunked for extremely shoddy methodology, then next couple are about glyphosate, not actually genetic engineering, which is it's own often misunderstood topic, the ninth study was based basically on eyeballing pig organs with nothing particularly substantive and was widely criticized when it made the rounds a few years back, and a quick glance over the tenth one looks to me like it does not actually indicate anything about genetic engineering being dangerous, rather it seems to be criticizing not using a one size fits all approach to testing (not a criticism I would make).
So yeah, try again. Maybe explain to me what the causative mechanism is on the genetic and molecular levels and why it shows up in no other type of natural or man made genetic alteration while you're at it because I never really got that part about the claimed dangers of genetic engineering.
Now, about those bribes, know where I can sign up for Monsanto's Free Money Program? Because those stingy bastards haven't been paying me like they're apparently supposed to.
Anyone citing seriously the Seralini et al. study immediately loses all credibility in my eyes.
That article was retracted chiefly because many professional statisticians (I am one) pointed out that this study was, from the point of view of basic statistical methodology, a complete joke. In no significant way did this study establish any correlation between GMO and rat tumors (which is not to say it can't exist. Just that the data collected from this particular study does not prove anything).
It is laughable how the piece you link to suggests a big conspiration because the paper was retracted despite its original publication undergoing a "rigorous peer review". The fact of the matter is, peer review can fail big time (given the number of submitted scientific papers, that is hardly a surprise), and journals should definitely retract papers when it turns out after publication that they are a methodological disgrace.
Expose questionable scientific behavior practices, undisclosed conflicts of interests, biased studies, question established truths -- I am all in favor of it. But using bogus (and in this case sensationalist) studies to do so is self-contradictory. Bad science should be countered by good science, not by wishful thinking and vague conspiration theories.
That's excellent advice in general. When I was single, I used to eat loads of processed foods and microwave dinners... and I gained a lot of weight that way. At some point I started paying attention to what was in that food: tons of sugar and fats along with other crap. I kept eating the same dishes (pizza, Chinese and Indonesian dishes, meat veg and potatoes mostly) in the same quantities, but all of it home cooked from fresh ingredients from there on in. Made my own salad dressing and mayonnaise when I felt like it too (easy and takes only a few minutes). And I lost that weight, effortlessly.
Also, stay away from "light" products. In a lot of cases that just means they've added extra sugar instead of fat. Just as bad as the real deal, and tastes worse.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
Actually, there are denialists outside the US too. For instance Lubos Motl (Czech) or Ian Plimer (Australian).
Unless you mean "falsified" instead of "verified."
Even the IPCC now admits that the Hockey Stick was bogus.
The only people who still believe in the Hockey Stick are, well, uninformed.
Can you point to any actual evidence to support this assertion? Excessive sugar is bad for you, but I am aware of no controlled studies that have found that fructose or HFCS is any better or worse than any other sugar. The common belief that HFCS is worse than sucrose is based on conjecture and superstition, not data.
Guzzling soda sweetened with HFCS is bad for you. But guzzling the same amount of soda sweetened with cane sugar is no better.
Fructose is far worse than glucose, so any sugar with a higher percentage of fructose, (such as HFCS), has measurably worse health effects. Evidence is here, and many other places as well. All it took was a quick Google search for "fructose glucose liver", and a click on the third link. But then, I've been following this for a while, so I knew what to look for. The bottom line is that glucose is used by every cell in the body, whereas fructose can only be processed by the liver. Excessive consumption leads to liver disease almost exactly like that caused by excessive alcohol consumption, whereas excessive glucose consumption does not. There is also evidence that consumption of fructose in concentrations common in the current North American diet actually increases appetite. So yes, all sugars can lead to increased body fat through excessive calorie consumption; but fructose, in more than limited amounts, messes with the body's metabolism in ways that both cause more damage and more inflammation, and make weight gain more likely. The effects of fructose in causing obesity and poor health go far beyond its mere caloric content.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
It's also worth mentioning that HFCS is not all fructose.
HFCS is about 5% more fructose than table sugar. Whoopee shit. Replacing sucrose with HFCS is not the problem. The problem is [still] replacing vegetable oil. Oil spoils and goes rancid, which means things made out of fats have short shelf lives. So they replace the fats with HFCS, which has a similar textural result in the finished product, and they kill the sweetness with citric acid. Citric acid is one of those things that's lovely for you in small quantities, and causes gastrointestinal distress in large ones. So for the sake of shelf life, the processed food industry is willing to give you heartburn and diabetes (we know beyond any doubt that excessive sugar intake can at least bring on if not actually cause Type II diabetes.)
The other big problem with processed foods is divorcing sugar from enzymes in food. Eating a piece of fruit raises your insulin levels much less than drinking pasteurized fruit juice because the enzymes help to break down the sugar. You can actually buy cultured fruit enzymes to add to your fruit juice... or just eat the goddamned fruit. Oh, but that doesn't keep on the shelf for a year and a half...
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
HFCS used in sodas is a 55% fructose + 42% glucose mix.
I.e. 55 parts of "fat making sugar" and 42 parts of "blood sugar level" sugar.
Brain only understands glucose and will keep demanding more until the desired glucose level is reached.
Sucrose is 50-50.
Thus, for every two units of sugar you ingest, trying to satisfy your brain's desire for glucose with sucrose you get something like this:
[F][F][F][F][F]-[F][F][F][F][F]
[G][G][G][G][G]-[G][G][G][G][G]
10 units of fructose + 10 units of glucose.
With HFCS (55-42), for every two units of HFCS you're getting this:
[F][F][F][F][F]-[F][F][F][F][F]
[G][G][G][G]-[G][G][G][G]
20% less glucose, i.e. 20% lower blood sugar level, i.e. your brain will ask for at least 20% MORE of that sugary drink before reaching its desired blood sugar level.
Getting even more fructose along with it.
Looking at those same numbers from a BSL angle, taking that desired BSL as some individual 100% glucose level...
For 100% glucose satiety (i.e. reaching BSL desired by your brain) by ingesting HFCS, with your glucose you must also ingest 130.9% of fructose you'd be ingesting with sucrose.
I.e. HFCS makes you ingest 30% more fructose, which goes directly into triglycerides as by that time you already have plenty of glycogen.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens