Sugar industry blamed fat in fake studies – study

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https://www.rt.com/usa/359127-sugar-industry-faked-research/

The sugar industry paid Harvard researchers in the 1960s to bury research linking sugar intake to heart disease and to instead make fat the culprit, according to a study of archival documents.
“These internal documents show that the Sugar Research Foundation initiated coronary heart disease research in 1965 to protect market share and that its first project, a literature review, was published in the New English Journal of Medicine without disclosure of the sugar industry’s funding or role,” stated the study.

The internal sugar industry documents were found in public archives by a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.
 
Listening to this interview of Dr Richard Jacoby finally gave me the motivation I needed to cut sugar out of my diet.
http://thehighersidechats.com/dr-richard-jacoby-sugar-crush/

I also recently started following the Bulletproof Coffee fad (though not the overpriced name brand stuff). I put 1 tablespoon of high quality butter and 1 tablespoon of MCT coconut oil in my morning coffee. Makes me feel very sharp and energetic... Until about 11:00 AM and then very hungry. But I highly recommend everyone at least try it. :)
 
An article from 2012:
With an initial annual budget of nearly $800,000 ($3.4 million today) collected from the makers of Dixie Crystals, Domino, C&H, Great Western, and other sugar brands, the association recruited a stable of medical and nutritional professionals to allay the public's fears, brought snack and beverage companies into the fold, and bankrolled scientific papers that contributed to a "highly supportive" FDA ruling, which, the Silver Anvil application boasted, made it "unlikely that sugar will be subject to legislative restriction in coming years."
This decades-long effort to stack the scientific deck is why, today, the USDA's dietary guidelines only speak of sugar in vague generalities. ("Reduce the intake of calories from solid fats and added sugars.") It's why the FDA insists that sugar is "generally recognized as safe" despite considerable evidence suggesting otherwise.
The FDA's instructions were clear: To label a substance as a potential health hazard, there had to be "credible evidence of, or reasonable grounds to suspect, adverse biological effects"—which certainly existed for sugar at the time. But the GRAS committee's review would depend heavily on "Sugar in the Diet of Man" and other work by its authors. In the section on heart disease, committee members cited 14 studies whose results were "conflicting," but 6 of those bore industry fingerprints, including Francisco Grande's chapter from "Sugar in the Diet of Man" and 5 others that came from Grande's lab or were otherwise funded by the sugar industry.
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/10/sugar-industry-lies-campaign?page=1
 
But wait, isn't sugar just the boogeyman du jour?

Go back each decade and you'll find a different one.

Seriously, it's about balance. Too much of any one thing can kill you. People have nearly killed themselves with carrots ffs.

The problem with humans? We don't do very well with this whole "moderation" thing.

Besides, sugar and fat are best when used together. :)

Give up sugar? F that. Life isn't worth living without white cake with buttercream frosting. :D
 
But wait, isn't sugar just the boogeyman du jour?

Go back each decade and you'll find a different one.

Seriously, it's about balance. Too much of any one thing can kill you. People have nearly killed themselves with carrots ffs.

The problem with humans? We don't do very well with this whole "moderation" thing.

Besides, sugar and fat are best when used together. :)

Give up sugar? F that. Life isn't worth living without white cake with buttercream frosting. :D

I mostly just don't want my memory and mind to go... Watched other family members die that way and it's an awful way to go. I still have a dessert every few weeks but ordinarily try to avoid sugar.
 
Listening to this interview of Dr Richard Jacoby finally gave me the motivation I needed to cut sugar out of my diet.
http://thehighersidechats.com/dr-richard-jacoby-sugar-crush/

I also recently started following the Bulletproof Coffee fad (though not the overpriced name brand stuff). I put 1 tablespoon of high quality butter and 1 tablespoon of MCT coconut oil in my morning coffee. Makes me feel very sharp and energetic... Until about 11:00 AM and then very hungry. But I highly recommend everyone at least try it. :)
I put (grass fed) butter and a bit of cinnamon and cayenne in my coffee . . . sometimes coconut oil.

I think it's fun to drink that way . . . And I think it's important to get various healthy fats throughout the day.
 
I'm down with moderation of sugar, although I am not a big fan of sweets. I do get occasional cravings, but never been a big fan of Chocolate
 
A part of this story is that a guy called Ancel Keys made a name for himself by demonizing saturated fat. He did it by cherry picking 7 points (each representing a country) out of 22 for which he had data, and produced a graph that appeared to indicate a relationship between saturated fat intake and heart attacks. Among the countries he missed out, was France, which has (on average, of course) a high saturated fat intake and low levels of heart disease! The graph with all 22 points shows no obvious trend. Once the scare had been started, it has continued unabated.

This is another example of modern science at its very worst.

It would have been far easier for people to reduce sugar consumption if saturated fat was not demonized at the same time.

I do rather agree with Vault313 however, there is an awful tendency to leap from one dietary fad to another, and moderation is probably healthier and more enjoyable.

David
 
So, I tried researching that book noted above: Sugar Crush by Dr. Richard Jacoby. He is a podiatrist and his co-author heads a healthcare marketing firm.

I basically found nothing.

Other than a bunch of book reviews by amateur bloggers that subscribe to what I would call alternative health anyway.

Without having read the book, but also without finding any research supporting his claims, I'm extremely skeptical. His theory is mostly based on treating diabetic patients with advanced neuropathy. The problem with that is, diabetics are NOT the general population. Their diets are moderated and altered by necessity, just like someone that truly does have Celiac Disease (another jump-on-the-bandwagon bullshit diet fad, most people are NOT gluten intolerant) or someone with phenylketonuria. These are not "average, healthy individuals". They have a disease and could literally die without proper medical intervention. Basing a theory for overall general health on research done on a non-average, diseased (don't mean that in a negative way) population is...absurd. Diabetes isn't fully understood. They're still not really sure why diabetes occurs. They understand that it has something to do with the Beta cells in the pancreas, the cells that produce insulin and that in many cases it appears to be auto-immune related, but they don't understand why in some people they fail entirely (type 1) or become resistant (type 2). For type 2, there is an association with sugar intake and overall diet, but as we all know, correlation does not equal causation. We could also get into why diabetes diagnosis rates have skyrocketed. First, people often fail to understand that with the advancement of better diagnostics, it's easier to detect disease states that would have often gone unnoticed or undiagnosed. Also with better access to health care more people are receiving medical attention that was uncommon in centuries past. This is also why we see higher rates of Autism. Autism is now considered a spectrum disorder. Meaning those diagnosed with autism vary from very high functioning (generally identified as having Asperger's syndrome, not Ass-burgers) to very low functioning. People have lived virtually their entire lives not even realizing they had Asperger's, until it became known as high functioning autism (again, though, we are talking about another disease that is not very well understood). So it seems like autism rates have skyrocketed as well, but likely not. It's all about better diagnostics and access to healthcare.

I thing Steven Novella has it right here (see Bart's) link above. For the vast majority of people, moderation is key.

And calling something like a simple carbohydrate, which is VITAL for human health a "poison" is just fear-mongering silliness.
 
So, I tried researching that book noted above: Sugar Crush by Dr. Richard Jacoby. He is a podiatrist and his co-author heads a healthcare marketing firm.

I basically found nothing.

Other than a bunch of book reviews by amateur bloggers that subscribe to what I would call alternative health anyway.

Without having read the book, but also without finding any research supporting his claims, I'm extremely skeptical. His theory is mostly based on treating diabetic patients with advanced neuropathy. The problem with that is, diabetics are NOT the general population. Their diets are moderated and altered by necessity, just like someone that truly does have Celiac Disease (another jump-on-the-bandwagon bullshit diet fad, most people are NOT gluten intolerant) or someone with phenylketonuria. These are not "average, healthy individuals". They have a disease and could literally die without proper medical intervention. Basing a theory for overall general health on research done on a non-average, diseased (don't mean that in a negative way) population is...absurd. Diabetes isn't fully understood. They're still not really sure why diabetes occurs. They understand that it has something to do with the Beta cells in the pancreas, the cells that produce insulin and that in many cases it appears to be auto-immune related, but they don't understand why in some people they fail entirely (type 1) or become resistant (type 2). For type 2, there is an association with sugar intake and overall diet, but as we all know, correlation does not equal causation. We could also get into why diabetes diagnosis rates have skyrocketed. First, people often fail to understand that with the advancement of better diagnostics, it's easier to detect disease states that would have often gone unnoticed or undiagnosed. Also with better access to health care more people are receiving medical attention that was uncommon in centuries past. This is also why we see higher rates of Autism. Autism is now considered a spectrum disorder. Meaning those diagnosed with autism vary from very high functioning (generally identified as having Asperger's syndrome, not Ass-burgers) to very low functioning. People have lived virtually their entire lives not even realizing they had Asperger's, until it became known as high functioning autism (again, though, we are talking about another disease that is not very well understood). So it seems like autism rates have skyrocketed as well, but likely not. It's all about better diagnostics and access to healthcare.

I thing Steven Novella has it right here (see Bart's) link above. For the vast majority of people, moderation is key.

And calling something like a simple carbohydrate, which is VITAL for human health a "poison" is just fear-mongering silliness.

It sounds like your sugar addicted cells and cynical cells are joining forces to justify ignoring this dude... ;) Just give the THC interview a listen at least. A podiatrist has to deal with a lot of diabetics and associated neurological issues.

Last May when I listened to this interview and swore off sugar, my fiancée also got one of those fancy Bluetooth scales that measures body fat percentage... Here's the results for me of mostly cutting out sugar:

image.png


Also I was getting a pretty bad case of dandruff. I could scratch my head and it would snow. The dandruff is completely gone now. Other benefits I've noticed: less sinus drainage and better breath.

Regarding gluten, I get stuffy sinuses when I eat a lot of bread or drink wheat beer. I've tried gluten free beer and it doesn't stop up my nose. Also... It just occurred to me that maybe stopping sugar changed my taste in beer. Only in the last few weeks have I developed a taste for pale ales and IPA's. I can't get enough of the hoppy bitterness. I used to not be able to stand those. Now it's all I want to drink.
 
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But see, that's all correlative. There are a number of ingredients in almost all foods. It really would take a large scale, complex, expensive longitudinal study (actually, more than one) to really prove sugar to be the culprit.

Your results could have come about from a number of things. When changing ones diet, it's not really as simple as eliminating any one thing. We eliminate and replace. By eliminating sugar, did you simply lower your calorie intake in general, hence the lower body fat. What about activity during that period? Stress levels? Anything out of the ordinary happen? Did you start a new fitness regimen? Alter an existing regimen? Did you get ill during this period? Did you sleep more? Did you sleep better? Did you work more/less hours? Could you have undetected cancer? Did you change shampoos? Frequency of shampooing? Have pollen levels decreased? Did you take allergy medication before? After? Did you switch medications?

There are a ton if confounding factors to be considered. It would be difficult to truly isolate without the proper studies done. Even in the best designed and most tightly controlled studies it can be difficult to really prove causation. Really difficult.

But I'm sure you know all that. Even if Dr. Jacoby is on to something, he's far from proving it.

In the end, if it works for you and you feel better for it, great! To each his own and we all choose what we think is right for ourselves. But making claims that should apply to the entire human race requires a much, much higher threshold of proof.

So, if you'll excuse me, I have a sheet cake with white buttercream frosting waiting for me. :D*







*(Not really :mad:)
 
Also I was getting a pretty bad case of dandruff. I could scratch my head and it would snow. The dandruff is completely gone now. Other benefits I've noticed: less sinus drainage and better breath.

Regarding gluten, I get stuffy sinuses when I eat a lot of bread or drink wheat beer. I've tried gluten free beer and it doesn't stop up my nose. Also... It just occurred to me that maybe stopping sugar changed my taste in beer. Only in the last few weeks have I developed a taste for pale ales and IPA's. I can't get enough of the hoppy bitterness. I used to not be able to stand those. Now it's all I want to drink.

Hmmm... Most of that seems related to yeast (dandruff certainly is). Malassezia (of all kinds) feed off the lipids in your sebum and enjoy fats and sugar (its required for their metabolism), so I would say that its probable that the improvement could have been caused by depriving them of a surplus of food.
 
Hmmm... Most of that seems related to yeast (dandruff certainly is). Malassezia (of all kinds) feed off the lipids in your sebum and enjoy fats and sugar (its required for their metabolism), so I would say that its probable that the improvement could have been caused by depriving them of a surplus of food.

Yes, that's what I read. The week before and after my birthday, I had some sweets, and dandruff came back temporarily and the fat mass plateaued.. Actually spiked up a bit.
 
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