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

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

#241

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jollyllama wrote: post #102
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…

> That doesn't seem like enough to entirely shape worldwide discourse around nutrition and sugar. People are often surprised when they find out how little people sell out for. The going rate for a member of congress in 2015 was a little less [0] - about $43,000. [0] https://truthout.org/articles/you-too-can-buy-a-congressman/

> The going rate for a member of congress in 2015 was a little less [0] - about $43,000

If that's really the factor that swung the vote, there is more to it than that contribution. There may be a promise of a job after Congress. Or there may be an expectation of continued contributions.

Put another way, if you donate $43,000, you're not going to get a line item in a law. (Counterpoint: I've never donated more than a few thousand in my life, and I've had a hand in multiple state and now three federal laws. A lot of people don't civically engage. If you're the only person calling your elected on a bill they don't care about, and you aren't a nutter, they'll turn you into their de facto staffer on it.)

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

#242

Post by ceejayoz »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #239
ceejayoz wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not legal, but intentional misconduct can be tough to prove. https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/professor-charged-op... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Poehlman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Reuben > in every other industry that i can imagine Our own industry (tech) is rife with unpunished fraud.

> intentional misconduct can be tough to prove It's hard to prove when it isn't investigated. How many of the debunked psychology professors took federal funding? How many have been criminally investigated?

> How many of the debunked psychology professors took federal funding?

But being wrong isn't a crime. Intentional fraud is.

> It's hard to prove when it isn't investigated.

And it's hard to investigate without some reasonably solid evidence of a crime.

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

#243

Post by resoluteteeth »

DetectDefect wrote: post #31
mullingitover wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The food pyramid went away over twenty years ago. It was discontinued in 2005, and the current guidelines are at https://www.fns.usda.gov/cnpp/myplate which launched in 2011.

Which are crafted by individuals with strong financial ties to the meat, dairy, or egg industries, thus should be disregarded by any reasonable person.

> Which are crafted by individuals with strong financial ties to the meat, dairy, or egg industries, thus should be disregarded by any reasonable person.

The RFK jr version of the food pyramid now moves meat and dairy to the biggest section of the pyramid

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

#244

Post by cogman10 »

Aurornis wrote: post #52
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’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 big problem is that "truth tellers" very often leverage media platforms to sell their unscientific and unsupported or lightly supported opinions.

It's relatively simple to ultimately buy airtime to sell a product and have the one air host fawn over it as if what's been sold is the greatest truth of our lifetime. Some of the court documents against infowars placed the price for that sort of airtime at something like $20,000.

The problem comes in that the actual experts have very little want or desire to do the same. We're lucky if we see a few "science communicators" that step up to the plate, but they very rarely end up with the funds to sell the truth.

This a big part of how the "vaccines cause autism" garbage spread. Long before it caught on like it did, Wakefield was going around to conferences and selling his books and doing public speaking events on the dangers.

That pattern is pretty apparent if you look at major fad diets over the years. Selling that "you just have to eat meat" or "You just have to eat raw" or "You just have to eat liver" can make you some big money and may even land you on opera where you can further sell your magic green coffee beans.

Medical reality is generally a lot more boring. Like you point out, CVD is likely influenced by multiple factors. Diet, alcohol intake, exercise (or lack thereof) all contributing factors.

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

#245

Post by [deleted] »

munchler wrote: post #208
brodouevencode wrote: post #199

The new dietary guidelines are much more sensible IMO, compared to the food pyramid or MyPlate. https://cdn.realfood.gov/DGA.pdf

> To Make America Healthy Again, we must return to the basics. Who knows, these guidelines might indeed be sensible, but anything labeled “Make America Healthy Again” has no scientific credibility.

[deleted]

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

#246

Post by zamadatix »

munchler wrote: post #208
brodouevencode wrote: post #199

The new dietary guidelines are much more sensible IMO, compared to the food pyramid or MyPlate. https://cdn.realfood.gov/DGA.pdf

> To Make America Healthy Again, we must return to the basics. Who knows, these guidelines might indeed be sensible, but anything labeled “Make America Healthy Again” has no scientific credibility.

The dumb marketing label lowers the credibility that I'll expect to find good science in it. It in no way defines what the actual scientific credibility should be though.

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

#247

Post by cogman10 »

deadbabe wrote: post #223
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…

But there is also the fallacy where some people want you to believe basically everything will cause CVD and there is no single thing you could do to change it, so therefore just keep doing whatever you’re doing.

I've never seen this fallacy.

What I've seen is that the best and most well documented way to prevent CVD is the DASH diet paired with exercise and potentially statins.

If you are an unhealthy weight you are both eating too much and/or not exercising enough. High calorie foods can be fatty, sugary, or both.

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

#248

Post by hinkley »

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-...

So the dairy industry still hasn’t gotten its day in court.

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

#249

Post by [deleted] »

alphazard wrote: post #8
delichon wrote: post #2

This meme is very healthy among MAHA, and Secretary Kennedy is overseeing an overhaul of the Dietary Guidelines, recasting saturated fat as a health food. There is a lot of speculation that we will soon see a new food pyramid that is an inverted version of the last one. https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/10/08/nx... I wonder if it will keep flipping as administrations change. Edit: The new guidelines…

> There is a lot of speculation that we will soon see a new food pyramid that is inverted. Pretty much everyone I know understands that the food pyramid is the product of various lobbies coming together and does not represent a legitimate theory of diet or nutrition. That is independent of their politics or opinions about RFK. I don't think a change to the food pyramid would change anyone's actions, people haven't ta…

[deleted]

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

#250

Post by jimmar »

jqpabc123 wrote: post #193

Which will make you fatter? A) Eating a pound/kg of fat B) Eating a pound/kg of refined sugar Correct answer: B Sugar enters your blood stream almost immediately --- starting in your mouth. Unless you're doing heavy exercise and burning lots of calories, your body has to store most of this excess energy --- as fat. The only way to get consumed fat into your bloodstream is to first convert it into sugar --- which itse…

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7598063/

> Carbohydrate overfeeding produced progressive increases in carbohydrate oxidation and total energy expenditure resulting in 75-85% of excess energy being stored. Alternatively, fat overfeeding had minimal effects on fat oxidation and total energy expenditure, leading to storage of 90-95% of excess energy.

Also, it's just not true that consumed fat must be turned into sugar before entering the bloodstream. See https://med.libretexts.org/Courses/American_Public_Universit...

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