There is “compelling evidence” that the sugar industry initiated research in the 1960s “expressly to exonerate sugar as a major risk factor for coronary heart disease.”

Marion Nestle
Professor of nutrition, food studies and public health
New York University

Recent publications have all pointed to a fact that the sugar industry funded research in the 1960s that downplayed the risks of eating sugar while emphasizing the hazards of fat. The article spoke on thousands of recently discovered documents at Harvard and other libraries that originated from an industry group called the “Sugar Research Foundation,” who wanted to deny the role of sugar towards heart disease, which they succeeded in doing by paying a research team of Harvard scientists $50 000 in today’s value who confirmed their stand. The result of this research concluded that implicating sugar in coronary heart disease is a problem, but rather Americans should cut down their dietary fat intake. However, in the result, which was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, there was no mentioning of neither the Sugar industry funding this research, nor that the result was based on studies that were handpicked by the SRF.

The authors of this recent article also allude to the fact that for the past five decades, the sugar industry has been influencing not only scientific debate published in prominent medical journals concerning the relative risks of sugar and fat, but also health officials to recommend Americans to practice a low fat, high-sugar diet. Something that many of today’s health experts consider to be a major factor behind the global obesity epidemic that, according to the WHO, includes 39% of the worlds adult population..

The industry “should have exercised greater transparency in all of its research activities,” the Sugar Association, stated in response to the publications.

In more recent time, a New York Times article exposed that Coca-Cola, the world’s largest producer of sugary beverages, had provided researchers with millions of dollars to downplay any connection between sugary drinks and obesity. Even candy makers have also funded studies claiming that children who eat candy tend to weigh less than those who do not.