Eat Real Food? Nutrition Advice · Episode 4 of 9 · 17 min
The Sugar Papers — How the Sweet Industry Redirected the Blame
In 1965 the sugar industry paid three Harvard nutrition scientists to review the evidence on sugar and heart disease, supplying the studies and setting the objective. Their 1967 review called the link limited and pointed toward fat, without disclosing the funding. UCSF researchers documented the arrangement in 2016.
Who's who
- John HicksonSugar Research Foundation executive who ran the project
- Frederick StareFounder of Harvard's nutrition department, whose group took the commission
- D. Mark HegstedHarvard co-author later influential in federal nutrition policy
- Robert McGandyHarvard researcher and co-author of the review
- Cristin KearnsUCSF researcher who found the correspondence in archives
- Laura SchmidtUCSF health policy professor and co-author
- Stanton GlantzUCSF professor and senior author of the 2016 paper
Where it happens
- Harvard School of Public Health, MassachusettsHome of the researchers who wrote the review
Timeline
- 1965Sugar Research Foundation engages Harvard researchers for about $6,500
- 1967Two-part review in the New England Journal of Medicine calls sugar's link limited
- 1984The journal begins requiring disclosure of funding and conflicts of interest
- September 12, 2016Kearns, Schmidt and Glantz publish their findings in JAMA Internal Medicine
Still debated
The 2016 authors say the review helped sidetrack the sugar debate, but critics note fat-and-cholesterol theories already had strong momentum. Whether the researchers' conclusions were bought or merely congenial is unsettled, and the sugar and heart disease science itself is still being refined.