Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

ucsf.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 537 posts

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#171

Post by casualrandomcom »

rendaw wrote: post #12

When this news first came out it was mind blowing, but at the same time I don't entirely get it. So the money quote seems to be: > The literature review heavily criticized studies linking sucrose to heart disease, while ignoring limitations of studies investigating dietary fats. They paid a total of 2 people $50,000 (edit: in 2016 dollars). That doesn't seem like enough to entirely shape worldwide discourse around nu…

I don't know why this was re-posted today (kind of suspicious that this floats again after 10 year just by chance) anyway, there is a full citation-heavy book by Gary Taubes about this, and one of his points was that the sugar industry paid 2 million in 1970's dollars to create the nutrition department of Harvard, which was the first nutrition department in the world. (This was to say that nutrition science itself has been corrupt since its birth).

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#172

Post by ericmcer »

aziaziazi wrote: post #112
bregma wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ever spread lard on toast? Do you prefer croissants made with lard? Is everyone's favourite dish these days lard chicken (I mean the Indian dish, not the Soul Food dish, which is of course popular in some locales). Nope. Butter is favoured because it tastes unctuous. Nothing to do with Big Cow or any special interest lobby local to certain valleys in the USA. Except maybe Big Bacon Drippings, because if there's one t…

> Butter is favoured because it tastes unctuous Oily stuff tastes unctuous. Butter is favored because most people had it in their youth. Some regions loves Nato and Chicken feet, others cheese and oysters. What's the most delicious? It depends of your own history. I spread olive oil on my toast and prefer the croissants made with that as well. My favorite dish is fried tempeh.

Wouldn't the preferred fat of a culture be spread between countries as they interacted then? Instead it has been fairly one directional with butter being adopted globally but other fats remaining niche (except Olive oil). Is that because of imperialism or is it because it is the best tasting one?

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#173

Post by llm_nerd »

Retric wrote: post #148
llm_nerd wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The next step, often implied rather than explicit, is to push the reader into assuming that the opposite position must therefore be the correct one. See this in the constant "the MSM is imperfect, that's why I trust Joe Rogan or some random `citizen-journalist' on Twitter" nonsense. It's how everything has gotten very stupid very quickly. People note that medical science has changed course on something, therefore t…

The 80’s anti fat diet was mostly clogged arteries before we had all these anti cholesterol drugs and research showing how little impact dietary cholesterol has. US obesity simply wasn’t as common (15% in 1985 vs 40% today) and at the time most research is on even healthier populations because it takes place even earlier. Further many people that recently became obese didn’t have enough time for the health impact to…

The government and medical groups were advocating lower fat diets for CVD reasons, but among the mainstream it took hold overwhelmingly because it was seen as a mechanism for weight reduction or management. A gram of fat has twice the calories of a gram of protein or carbs, and this was widely repeated (yes, I was alive then). Similarly, if being fat was bad (and yes, it was viewed as very bad), then fat as a component of food must similarly be bad.

Obesity was obviously far less common, but concern about weight -- and note that weight standards were much, much tighter (see the women in virtually any 1980s movie, which today would be consider anorexic) -- was endemic culturally. Snackwells weren't being sold to middle age men, they were being sold overwhelmingly to younger office women paranoid about their weight, and it wasn't because they were concerned about their arteries. Low fat products overwhelmingly targeted weight loss, including such ad campaigns as the "special k pinch".

"Thus calories alone were less vilified."

I'm sorry, but this is simply ahistorical. Calories were *EVERYTHING* among a large portion of the population. What is your knowledge on the 1980s from, because it certainly isn't based upon observable reality.

In the 1980s, being slightly overweight made you the joke (like literally the joke, as seen from Chunk in the Goonies, and many parallels in other programs). As calories became cheaper and people's waists started bulging, it was an easy paranoia to exploit.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#174

Post by octaane »

ThinkBeat wrote: post #159
stephenhuey wrote: post #75

Here’s a gift link to a NYT article that was posted a few minutes ago: Kennedy Flips Food Pyramid to Emphasize Red Meat and Whole Milk https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/well/rfk-jr-food-pyramid-...

At the top of the pyramid there are also vegetables. For some reason that is left out in some of the media converge. Kennedy said to avoid the sugary, processed foods that he labels as poisonous to health. (Does any sane person disagree with this?) “My message is clear: Eat real food,” Mr. Kennedy said (Does any sane person disagree with this?)

[flagged]

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#175

Post by parpfish »

CodeWriter23 wrote: post #61
rendaw wrote: post #12

When this news first came out it was mind blowing, but at the same time I don't entirely get it. So the money quote seems to be: > The literature review heavily criticized studies linking sucrose to heart disease, while ignoring limitations of studies investigating dietary fats. They paid a total of 2 people $50,000 (edit: in 2016 dollars). That doesn't seem like enough to entirely shape worldwide discourse around nu…

You could buy a house and a 69 Charger for $25K in the 60's with a tidy sum left over.

I doubt that the 50k was given to the research as personal pay. It was likely a “research grant” that was used to fund the research and/or get swallowed up as “overhead” by the university

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#176

Post by gruez »

aldarion wrote: post #146
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or maybe the combination is the problem. I couldn’t consume much sugar on its own nor much cream but put the two together in ice cream and I could eat it all day long.

That is what I came to believe as well. If sugar alone was the problem, vegans would be fat. If fat alone was the problem, ketogenic and carnivore diets wouldn't help people lose weight. It seems to be the combination of two at the same time that causes the issues.

>That is what I came to believe as well. If sugar alone was the problem, vegans would be fat. If fat alone was the problem, ketogenic and carnivore diets wouldn't help people lose weight.

This logic is faulty because both vegans and keto/carnivore people are selected for adherence to diets. If you can stick to either dietary restrictions, you can probably also not pig out on pop tarts or whatever.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#177

Post by cassepipe »

Teever wrote: post #147
Aurornis wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re exactly right: This one incident did not shape the entire body of scientific research. There is a common trick used in contrarian argumentation where a single flaw is used to “debunk” an entire side of the debate. The next step, often implied rather than explicit, is to push the reader into assuming that the opposite position must therefore be the correct one. They don’t want you to apply the same level of rig…

> The next step, often implied rather than explicit, is to push the reader This is the key part of this. It isn't even about the post or person that is being replied to, it's about the far wider audience who doesn't post but who who reads these interactions. This clip summarizes the process: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuaHRN7UhRo

First time ever I get : "The uploader has not made this video available in your country"

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#178

Post by kenferry »

game_the0ry wrote: post #141

That industry can lobby for and basically "purchase" scientific outcomes that affect health standards should be a defcon 1 red alert. People should be lose their careers over this, at the very least imo. And the fact that people do not care is just as, if not more, concerning. This is how you get MAHA, which I support bc of this, craziness included.

Er, how does putting your faith in literally vibes (MAHA) follow. Just complete rejection of expertise and science.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#179

Post by twodave »

ecshafer wrote: post #67
ok123456 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

take me back

[flagged]

No, fiat currency has allowed our money supply to track closer to our GDP, preventing currency shortages and price manipulation by foreign adversaries, giving us the most stable economy the world has ever experienced over the last 50 years. Yes, it can be abused (and some Asian countries have taken this to dangerous extremes), but it’s better than all the alternatives so far.

Re: Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)

#180

Post by Retric »

llm_nerd wrote: post #173
Retric wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 80’s anti fat diet was mostly clogged arteries before we had all these anti cholesterol drugs and research showing how little impact dietary cholesterol has. US obesity simply wasn’t as common (15% in 1985 vs 40% today) and at the time most research is on even healthier populations because it takes place even earlier. Further many people that recently became obese didn’t have enough time for the health impact to…

The government and medical groups were advocating lower fat diets for CVD reasons, but among the mainstream it took hold overwhelmingly because it was seen as a mechanism for weight reduction or management. A gram of fat has twice the calories of a gram of protein or carbs, and this was widely repeated (yes, I was alive then). Similarly, if being fat was bad (and yes, it was viewed as very bad), then fat as a compone…

Sure, that’s a reasonable take, but satiety research was also far less developed.

The general understanding at the time was basically a full stomach tells people they have eaten enough. We didn’t understand the multiple systems the body uses to adjust the hunger drive and how much a high carb low fat diet messes with them.

> I'm sorry, but this is simply nonsensical. Calories were EVERYTHING among a large portion of the population. What is your knowledge on the 1980s from, because it certainly isn't based upon observable reality.

Less vilified is on a relative scale, I was alive back then and there was plenty of nonsensical low calorie diets being promoted. However you also saw crap like the Fruitarian Diet where unlimited fruit meant people could actually gain weight on a diet that also gave them multiple nutritional deficiencies.

Low fat dieting is in part from that same mindset as fruitarian diet where it’s not the calories that are the issue but the types of food you were eating. Digging just a little deeper these ideas made more sense before global supply chains and highly processed foods showed up. Culture can be a lot slower to adapt than technology or economics, diet advice from your grandparents could be wildly out of date. Cutting X means something very different when you have 20 available foods vs 20,000.

Post reply on HN