Sugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016) • Hacker News Board

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

#371

Post by al_borland » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

snemvalts wrote: post #316

al_borland wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eating nothing but processed foods, sugar, and heavily processed grains? That sounds like the opposite of what Kennedy recommends, which is a recipe for obesity and type 2 diabetes. He’s got his problems, many of them, but eating real food without a bunch of processing seems like a fairly common sense thing.

Red meat (a known carcinogen) at the top is gold. All that saturated fat the energy will come from (not from protein or veggies) will probably cause heart problems and plaque formation in arteries, not to mention insulin resistance just from increased FFAs in blood. Vegetarians and vegans have lower T2D incidence on average FWIW.

> Vegetarians and vegans have lower T2D incidence on average FWIW.

Anecdotally, my dad tried vegetarianism for quite a while to address his T2D, but it had no effect. My mom cut out sugar and processed carbohydrates and her T2D was gone in ~3 months or so.

Following any diet is probably better than nothing at all, which could explain the lower incidence of T2D in that group vs the general public. I’d be more curious about the rates in vegetarians/vegans vs people who eat paleo or even carnivore.

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

#372

Post by GloamingNiblets » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:38 PM UTC

lfliosdjf wrote: post #364

anthomtb wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did keto for a few months a long time ago (2010/2011). This was early in my career and long coding and debug sessions were a normal part of my day-to-day. There was zero impact to my work focus, positive or negative, from cutting nearly all carbohydrates out for several months. I am curious were you heard or learned that "sugar is really important for focus". Just a vibe, perhaps?

Personal experience. Then I found many well known programmers shared the same experience online. It feels deliberate work without sugar. ie. if coding = work + fun. without sugar its just coding = work. It does not get any better after 3 days or so too.

It might feel good but spiking your blood sugar isn't healthy for you, and the crashes afterwards will get worse over the years. Improving metabolic health might be a better long term solution; have you explored how endurance or high intensity exercise affects your focus?

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

#373

Post by giantg2 » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:49 PM UTC

flatline wrote: post #345

giantg2 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see it as more of a limit than a requirement. After all, you can technically satisfy your dietary needs with vegetables and eliminate fruits. But we aren't talking about technicalities and edge cases, rather what a balanced diet might consist of. For many people that does include dairy and fruits, even if neither are completely necessary.

I would gently suggest that you may be blinded by a cultural bias here, which has partly been formed by the dairy lobby over the course of every living American’s lifetime. While it is true that we are not the only culture that drinks cow’s milk, it is predominantly a Northern European and later American phenomenon, and the number of people who are intolerant to dairy on some level is very high. I’m not saying a bala…

"I’m not saying a balanced diet cannot consist of dairy, but implying it should, as the plate diagram does, is highly misleading and outright paid for."

And to exclude it would imply that it cannot be part of a balanced diet. That would be misleading based on the predominate culture.

"I would gently suggest that you may be blinded by a cultural bias here,"

I would suggest that you are not aware of the cultural background. The US was colonized by Europeans. Many cultures who immigrated also used milk, cheese, or other dairy products. It makes sense that the guidelines be based on the cultural background of the foods eaten in that country.

Also many Asian countries have nutrition guidelines that include dairy products, not to mention historical cultural foods that do include dairy.

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

#374

Post by platevoltage » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:50 PM UTC

10xDev wrote: post #139

[flagged]

I thought that BMI did the opposite. I'm a naturally thin person who has also been vegan for over 20 years, so I usually have to pay attention to whether I'm eating enough. I recently did a BMI test and was surprised how average my score was. I've known people who appear healthy and active that inch into the "overweight" category. It really is a bad measurement system given the whole muscle mass factor.

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

#375

Post by peyton » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:55 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #244

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 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 li…

I disagree. Demand is the big problem, not supply.

The general public possesses domain-independent expertise on social pressures, institutional and financial incentives, and other non-epistemological factors that in some cases can support a rational rejection of scientific consensus.

Inadequate gatekeeping—premature or belated consensus or revision—is a failure of a given field of inquiry, not a failure of the general public.

More here: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-025-05423-7

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

#376

Post by ajanicij » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:56 PM UTC

BobbyJo wrote: post #346

overgard wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think common sense here can be a guide though. You don't need sugar at all, excluding high levels of anaerobic exercise. Your liver can produce the glucose your body actually needs from other sources (gluconeogenesis) and a lot of your tissues that use glucose also can use fatty acids or ketones. Fructose isn't needed at all. ("low blood sugar" isn't a symptom of not consuming enough sugar, it's a symptom of a disr…

Your entire argument here applies in the other direction as well. You do not need dietary saturated fats, and sugar has all sorts of uses biologically.

That is only partly true: you don't need dietary saturated fats, but you do need essential fats (omega-3 and omega-6), which are polyunsaturated. However, sugar does not have all sorts of uses biologically; it has only one: as one (but not the only one) source of energy.

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

#377

Post by Nux » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:57 PM UTC

aldarion wrote: post #214

gruez wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

That is incorrect, actually. I find it relatively easy to adhere to keto diet. But the moment I try to introduce more "diverse" foods, I gain weight. Because processed food diet is IMPOSSIBLE to adhere to without gaining weight. Caloric restriction simply doesn't work - your body wants nutrients, not just calories. Which is to say, your willpower will fail sooner or later, unless you find a way of satisfying nutritio…

I have noticed exactly the same myself re keto. Also it's probably the easiest diet or regime you can do.

UPF is the new devil as far as I can see, alongside refined sugar.

Also the size and sugar contents of some fruits nowadays is just insane and many still think they're "healthy".

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

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Post by StackRanker3000 » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 10:59 PM UTC

ademup wrote: post #280

deadbabe wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 call this the "Everything in Moderation" fallacy. From what I've heard people who say it, they emphasize the everything part of it. In other words almost everything is bad for you so just eat a little bit of everything and you won't get too much of the bad stuff. It's maddening.

The way I understand it (and my understanding is certainly poor, so I welcome well-supported pushback on it), is that few, if any, components in the food that we in developed countries eat today are actively harmful in themselves (with the caveat outlined below)

The main issue is overconsumption leading to overweight and obesity. Food that’s high in refined sugars and/or saturated fats tend to contribute to this, because it’s palatable and calorie-dense

So in that sense, yes - I believe that as long as your diet is varied enough that you get sufficient intake of all, or at least most, of the essential nutrients, and you don’t eat too much (i.e. in moderation), the ratio of macronutrients doesn’t make a big difference to your health outcome

The crux is that moderation is hard when the food is jam-packed with calories, and it’s so delicious you just want to keep stuffing your face

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

#379

Post by nomel » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 11:00 PM UTC

devilsdata wrote: post #360

samename wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In general, saturated fat consumption should not exceed 10% of total daily calories. Significantly limiting highly processed foods will help meet this goal. More high-quality research is needed to determine which types of dietary fats best support long-term health.

So that ends up being roughly 20 grams of saturated fat. I still consider that quite high, given that there is a strong correlation between saturated fat consumption and CVD.

> there is a strong correlation between saturated fat consumption and CVD

Reference? Many of the old studies have been proven flawed and, no surprise, corrupt [1]. Recent studies seem to suggest that it's only linked for some people.

Disclaimer: I am nearly uneducated with this topic, but find it increasingly hard to trust anything nutrition related, where big money is involved.

[1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9794145/

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

#380

Post by dredmorbius » Wed, Jan 07, 2026, 11:05 PM UTC

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…

They paid a total of 2 people...

That's not quite what TFA says. Rather:

"The UCSF researchers analyzed more than 340 documents, totaling 1,582 pages of text, between the sugar industry and two individuals...."

That is, this research (into industry influence) focused on the available and reviewed correspondence between the industry group and two specific researchers. There's nothing about this article or the referenced analysis which precludes additional other researchers being similarly influenced.