For decades, the industry has withheld study results on adverse health effects

Conspiracy theory: The American sugar industry has apparently been keeping track of inconvenient study results for decades. An analysis of internal documents shows that a study on the health effects of table sugar, promoted by the industry itself in the 1960s, was stopped when first results suggested a connection with heart disease and tumors. The results have not been published until today.

Too much sugar is unhealthy - but the sugar lobby wants to tell us something else. © Pat Herman / freeimages

Sugar tastes great - whether in drinks, fast food or sweets. But the sweet stuff is anything but healthy. Too much of it increases the risk of tooth decay, obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. In order to save the health insurance funds from the consequential costs, the World Health Organization (WHO) has long been recommending governments to levy special taxes on sugar-containing products. And indeed, more and more countries and cities are introducing, for example, taxes on sodas or restricting permitted beaker sizes.

The sugar industry naturally does not like the increasingly poor image of the sweetener and fights vehemently against the "sugar-bashing" trying to put the sweet substance in a positive light. It seems that the industry has been repeatedly using more than questionable methods for decades, as an investigation of scientists around Cristin Kearns from the University of California in San Francisco now clearly documented.

Adverse study results

The researchers have evaluated internal documents from the US sugar industry and found that the industry has withheld study results for decades that bring excessive sugar intake associated with heart disease and cancer. It all began with an investigation with the mysterious name "Project 259".

The American Foundation for Sugar Research, which later became the American confederation of the sugar industry, set up this project in 1968 to study the effects of table sugar and starch on heart health and metabolism in rats. But what the scientists funded by the foundation found out did not seem to suit the industry.

Experimental design for Project 259 and results reported to ISRF. © Rvector/Shutterstock.com. ISRF, International Sugar Research Foundation

Never published

The preliminary results suggested that sucrose had a different effect on metabolism than starch, says Kearns.

Thus, the sugar appeared to negatively affect blood lipid levels and thereby promote heart disease.

In addition, it turned out that sucrose could also play a role in the development of bladder cancer, says the researcher.

In internal documents, the Foundation described the results in September 1969 as

one of the first evidence of a biological difference between sucrose and starch-fed rats.

But the public should not be aware of this - and so, just before the completion of the project, the Foundation canceled additional research funds. The findings of the scientists were never published.

Not the first manipulation

As Kearns and her colleagues emphasize, in the 1960s there was a fierce scientific debate over whether industrial sugar increased so-called Triglycerides in the blood more than multiple sugars such as starch. "Project 259" would have substantiated this thesis and in this way could provide an important contribution to the discourse.

But the sugar foundation knew how to prevent that - and manipulated public opinion formation again. In earlier research the team around Kearns found out that in 1967 the foundation commissioned a review article with the sole purpose of downplaying the link between sugar intake and deadly heart disease.

Like the tobacco industry

The questionable approach of the US sugar industry has not changed to this day. Just last year, the industry association criticized a mouse study that linked sugar consumption to tumor growth as unbelievable. The association knows for at least 50 years of just such a connection. Finally, the by the industry itself funded and then withheld investigation came to a very similar result.

This form of manipulation is similar to what the tobacco industry does, says Stanton Glantz.

The latest results showed once again that studies funded by the sugar industry are not reliable sources.

Our research provides another testimony of many to industry's impact on science, concludes the team.

Source: PLOS Biology, 2017; doi: 10.1371 / journal.pbio.2003460