Sugar Tax Proposed Following WHO Global Report On Diabetes (Photo : Luis Ascui/Getty Images)
The study conducted by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) revealed that the sugar industry is attempting to shape science by pointing at fat as the leading cause of heart disease.
Documents from the early 1960s according to ABC News, have been uncovered and it was analyzed. It is said that the sugar industry has funded a research with regards to the doubts casted on the role of sugar in heart disease -and in part through finger pointing at fats.
The article was published on Monday and the analysis is based on correspondence of the Harvard University researchers and of the sugar trade group. This publication presented how beverage and food manufacturers tried to manipulate the public conception and understanding of nutrition.
What the obtained documents presented is that in the year 1964, the group called Sugar Association internally discussed within closed doors the campaign in order to address the "negative attitudes towards sugar". This comes after the studies came out associating the heart disease with sugar.
The following year in 1965, the group named Sugar Association implemented a project called "Project 226". This involved paying Harvard researchers an amount of today's equivalent which is $48,900. The amount paid covers for the article studying the scientific literature, receiving drafts for the article and for the supplied materials they wanted to be reviewed.
The final article was published in 1967 and it resulted with conclusion that there is "no doubt" that the only dietary and nutritional intervention which could prevent heart disease is by the reduction of saturated fat and cholesterol. As stated in the analysis, the Harvard University researchers exaggerated and overemphasized the consistency and correspondence of the literature with cholesterol and fat while reducing the emphasis and downplaying on the studies about sugar.
The co-author of the analysis and the professor of health policy at UCSF School of Medicine Laura Schmidt said that what this event in the history shows is the "incredible power" of the corporations to interfere with science in a fashion that truly impacts the whole populations and their dietary and consumptive behaviors, SF Gate reported.
Though the researchers of today do not have a unified consensus, a couple of emerging studies suggest the association between heart disease and sugar consumption.
