The UNICEF is trying for years to warn against excessive sugar consumption. But only their latest report speaks out: https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/IWP_2016_13.pdf
The Soda industry with the help of politicians did effectively destroy all sugar warnings and turn the carb problem into a fitness and fat issue.
Regarding gmos, thats not really true. While a lot of the research was done by industry (which is how its supposed to, why should the public pay for safety testing of products ?), there is also publicly funded research that confirms that GMOs are no more risky than traditional breeding and mutagenics.
Update: Replying to some of the comments, just want to clarify that company should pay for the testing, but the actual scientific research should be done independently. Of course the company will probably have done some initial research of their own (at least you would hope so), but it would need to be replicated independently.
I can't agree that "That Sugar Film" is the best documentary outlining the subject. It's overly dramatic! The lead actor is obviously rich (a house around which he can go for a jog, a personal gym... all that). Most people don't have such environments and choices. His way of experimenting can also be easily challenged.
similar also with magarine / chemical industry vs butter / farmers - for decades they paid for favorable research to say that magarine is better for you than butter.
Makes you wonder how many other studies are bought and paid for, such as the recent studies highlighting the evils of allowing cash (or at least high denomination notes) in our society.
> Calls for the eradication of cash have been bolstered by evidence that high-value notes play a major role in crime, terrorism and tax evasion. In a study for the Harvard Business School last week, former bank boss Peter Sands called for global elimination of the high-value note.
«Is it really true that food companies deliberately set out to manipulate research in their favor? Yes, it is, and the practice continues,” Nestle added, noting that Coca-Cola and candy makers have both tried recently to influence nutrition research.»
Universities need to be held accountable for researchers' ethics. The article suggests that the Sugar Research Foundation merely followed the standard procedure of any other trade group, that is, this was not an isolated incident. Maybe Harvard would be more inclined to avoid such malpractice if its brand and credibility suffered from it. Universities should not act like a PR firm.
«Trained as a dentist, Kearns said she was shocked to hear a keynote speaker at a 2007 dentistry conference — on diabetes, no less — tell her there is no evidence linking sugar to chronic disease. She quit her job and devoted herself full-time to uncovering documents that show the sugar industry’s influence over public policy and science.»
If the the research grant process wasn't already screwed up, it would be the perfect place to enforce ethics. "Sorry we can't approve your grant proposal due to ethical lapses at your institution." It wouldn't take long for universities to wise up and take ethics seriously.
At least that kind of thing doesn't happen today. Take this study that says eating lots of pasta doesn't make you fat. Oh wait. (Note the two funding sources in the right-hand column)
I hope this revelation does not only have consequences for the parties involved, but that the systemic problems in science and its relation with industry are addressed. For example, there is no or little incentive right now for researchers to reproduce/validate existing results; even if those results are highly cited. Also, the article speaks of "influential journals", but the source of a publication should not matter in the end.
Having heard of various crazy class action lawsuits I wonder if someone can sue them for trying (and succeeding) to mislead the public on the health problems due to sugar consumption?
Something to keep in mind when people point to GM studies that concluding that everything is perfect (or "pop-sci" apologetics, with arguments like "farmers did it for millennia anyway" conveniently forgetting the several orders of magnitude increased volume, speed, targeting, and the ability to do arbitrary matches -- nobody combined insect genes with fruits in the 12th century...).
Back in the day tobacco was a-ok by similar studies. Same for sugar.
Of course it's even worse for softer sciences (economics, social studies, urban development studies, etc.).
Sometimes I think that the best corporate social responsibility program companies can practice is to dismantle their PACs and stop funding lobbyists. Saves them the money and saves us all from biased public policy.
People who deliberately mislead the public at the cost of the publics health in the name of profit are some of the worst of the worst. I would like to see the people involved in this punished but it's wishful thinking. It is evil.
Few weeks ago I had the funny remark from a co-worker saying that among all the stuff we eat, sugar is the most useless one.
After thinking a bit about this, it really makes no sense to keep eating that much sugary stuff...
I understand why the sugar industry does this, just fighting fire with fire. The meat, dairy and egg industries have far more to answer for in regards to the current health epidemic in the western world.
Do people really think it's the sugar in the soda with all the literature we now have on nutrition? What about the oil laden fries, and the burgers packed with cholesterol, fat and animal protein that seem to be so popular in the western world? Most westerners I know consume overt fat and excess protein at least 2/3 meals each day then wonder why they have health problems.
I've seen more obese patients than I can count eat nothing but refined sugar, white rice, fruit juice (The Rice Diet [1]) and come out months later weighing half their original weight while reversing most, if not all of their western disease. Yet the majority of medical professionals continue to ignore the literature and clinical results that work in the LONG term.
And I know this is anecdotal - but when I traveled rural Asia, all the leanest and healthiest people I met ate nothing but rice, fruit and vegetables - it's all they could afford (the poorest of the lot just eat rice). They also have bowls of refined sugar on the table instead of salt and drink cane juice/sugary drinks like it's going out of fashion.
I personally eat 3000-4000 calories of carbohydrates each day, whether I'm training or not (cycling) and I never put on weight - I'm certainly not scared of soda. Winter just passed here, I trained probably once a week due to rain and actually weigh less than before Winter when I was training daily - most likely due to Thermogenesis [2].
Note too that de novo lipogenesis is so severely inefficient in humans [3] (even when over feeding) that it's laughable to even correlate sugar with obesity or our current health epidemic - especially when the majority are eating excess fat and protein.
I for one certainly love having my glycogen stores packed full of ready to use energy and my body producing glucose derived ATP [4,5] on the regular. And I know when I start to conk out on my bike I can just whip out an energy gel (sugar concentrate) or drink some sugar water to keep rolling.
I also imagine most folks on HN use their brain for most of the day, so don't forget to get adequate glucose on the daily to keep it humming along optimally [6].
Sugar is your best friend if you haven't already damaged your pancreas. Just make sure to get some basic nutrients and minerals from plant sources and you're good to go.
[+] [-] rurban|9 years ago|reply
Most obesity researchers are paid by the soda industry. e.g. http://www.alternet.org/food/soda-scandal-journalists-fail-r...
The best outline is the latest "Sugar" documentary http://thatsugarfilm.com/film/synopsis/ who started to get the word out and of course Yudkin's book. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/wellbeing/diet/10634081...
The UNICEF is trying for years to warn against excessive sugar consumption. But only their latest report speaks out: https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/pdf/IWP_2016_13.pdf The Soda industry with the help of politicians did effectively destroy all sugar warnings and turn the carb problem into a fitness and fat issue.
[+] [-] 7sigma|9 years ago|reply
The EU funded a 10 year project in that area https://ec.europa.eu/research/biosociety/pdf/a_decade_of_eu-...
The genera database can also give an indication of the funding by private and government in biotech (i think its 1/3 or 1/2, but can't find the link)
https://www.biofortified.org/portfolio/infographic-world-map...
Update: Replying to some of the comments, just want to clarify that company should pay for the testing, but the actual scientific research should be done independently. Of course the company will probably have done some initial research of their own (at least you would hope so), but it would need to be replicated independently.
Update 2: Grist covered gmos a few years back and here is the part about the regulation http://grist.org/food/the-gm-safety-dance-whats-rule-and-wha...
[+] [-] nnain|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fpp|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcbrand|9 years ago|reply
For example, from this Guardian article: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/15/crime-t...
> Calls for the eradication of cash have been bolstered by evidence that high-value notes play a major role in crime, terrorism and tax evasion. In a study for the Harvard Business School last week, former bank boss Peter Sands called for global elimination of the high-value note.
[+] [-] wazoox|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JonnieCache|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Red_Tarsius|9 years ago|reply
Universities need to be held accountable for researchers' ethics. The article suggests that the Sugar Research Foundation merely followed the standard procedure of any other trade group, that is, this was not an isolated incident. Maybe Harvard would be more inclined to avoid such malpractice if its brand and credibility suffered from it. Universities should not act like a PR firm.
«Trained as a dentist, Kearns said she was shocked to hear a keynote speaker at a 2007 dentistry conference — on diabetes, no less — tell her there is no evidence linking sugar to chronic disease. She quit her job and devoted herself full-time to uncovering documents that show the sugar industry’s influence over public policy and science.»
This quote exemplifies Arendt's banality of evil.
[+] [-] quantumhobbit|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] curiousgal|9 years ago|reply
Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uaWekLrilY
[+] [-] junipergreen|9 years ago|reply
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2016-07/inmn-pin06301...
[+] [-] PieterH|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amelius|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tener|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PieterH|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] coldtea|9 years ago|reply
Back in the day tobacco was a-ok by similar studies. Same for sugar.
Of course it's even worse for softer sciences (economics, social studies, urban development studies, etc.).
[+] [-] fratlas|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PieterH|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] leni536|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] noir-york|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tn13|9 years ago|reply
Elon Musk rants about environment. Do you think he does it out of his concern for planet or his company ?
[+] [-] Scirra_Tom|9 years ago|reply
It's absolutely rampant in the food industry.
[+] [-] jstoja|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rurban|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TeMPOraL|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cjpb|9 years ago|reply
Do people really think it's the sugar in the soda with all the literature we now have on nutrition? What about the oil laden fries, and the burgers packed with cholesterol, fat and animal protein that seem to be so popular in the western world? Most westerners I know consume overt fat and excess protein at least 2/3 meals each day then wonder why they have health problems.
I've seen more obese patients than I can count eat nothing but refined sugar, white rice, fruit juice (The Rice Diet [1]) and come out months later weighing half their original weight while reversing most, if not all of their western disease. Yet the majority of medical professionals continue to ignore the literature and clinical results that work in the LONG term.
And I know this is anecdotal - but when I traveled rural Asia, all the leanest and healthiest people I met ate nothing but rice, fruit and vegetables - it's all they could afford (the poorest of the lot just eat rice). They also have bowls of refined sugar on the table instead of salt and drink cane juice/sugary drinks like it's going out of fashion.
I personally eat 3000-4000 calories of carbohydrates each day, whether I'm training or not (cycling) and I never put on weight - I'm certainly not scared of soda. Winter just passed here, I trained probably once a week due to rain and actually weigh less than before Winter when I was training daily - most likely due to Thermogenesis [2].
Note too that de novo lipogenesis is so severely inefficient in humans [3] (even when over feeding) that it's laughable to even correlate sugar with obesity or our current health epidemic - especially when the majority are eating excess fat and protein.
I for one certainly love having my glycogen stores packed full of ready to use energy and my body producing glucose derived ATP [4,5] on the regular. And I know when I start to conk out on my bike I can just whip out an energy gel (sugar concentrate) or drink some sugar water to keep rolling.
I also imagine most folks on HN use their brain for most of the day, so don't forget to get adequate glucose on the daily to keep it humming along optimally [6].
Sugar is your best friend if you haven't already damaged your pancreas. Just make sure to get some basic nutrients and minerals from plant sources and you're good to go.
[1] https://www.drmcdougall.com/2013/12/31/walter-kempner-md-fou... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermogenesis [3] https://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2009nl/mar/passionate.htm [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbohydrate_catabolism [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adenosine_triphosphate [6] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3900881/
[+] [-] jmporcel|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tn13|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] agounaris|9 years ago|reply