Saturated fat causes heart disease, eh? I wonder who told us that?

[GliderGuider]

Lest anyone wonder why people like me have a jaundiced view of the industrial science establishment. First the tobacco industry, then the oil industry, now the sugar industry...

Study details sugar industry attempt to shape science

NEW YORK -- The sugar industry began funding research that cast doubt on sugar's role in heart disease -- in part by pointing the finger at fat -- as early as the 1960s, according to an analysis of newly uncovered documents.

In 1964, the group now known as the Sugar Association internally discussed a campaign to address "negative attitudes toward sugar" after studies began emerging linking sugar with heart disease, according to documents dug up from public archives. The following year the group approved "Project 226," which entailed paying Harvard researchers today's equivalent of $48,900 for an article reviewing the scientific literature, supplying materials they wanted reviewed, and receiving drafts of the article.

The resulting article published in 1967 (part one and part two) concluded there was "no doubt" that reducing cholesterol and saturated fat was the only dietary intervention needed to prevent heart disease. The researchers overstated the consistency of the literature on fat and cholesterol, while downplaying studies on sugar, according to the analysis.

"Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind and we look forward to its appearance in print," wrote an employee of the sugar industry group to one of the authors.

To ensure good health eat plenty of fat, and dump all sugar and most starch.

[Dorian Gray]

1. Certain fats are better than others

Avocado vs. Betty Crocker Cake frosting.

Walnuts vs. Magic Shell

Salmon vs. Marbled Rib Eye

Olive oil vs. Margarine

[GliderGuider]

2. IMO the key is to consume a variety of high-quality fats, with an emphasis on saturated fats.

[Cicada]

4. We need experiments

If we don't know about these things why don't we go to very poor people and give them free food, randomly diet one vs diet two, in return for rights to monitor their health?

[Orrex]

6. Because that would be grossly unethical, for one thing.

[FrodosPet]

9. But SCIENCE!

The religion of the 21st Century.

Anything done in the name of the almighty double blind deity is acceptable, and anyone who brings up ethics and constraint hates progress and wants us to live in the 12th Century, not the 21st.

[Nitram]

12. Tilting at straw dogs, Frodo? You've left out half of what science actually does.

Constantly question assumptions and revise them when the evidence suggests they are wrong. Name one religion that does that?

[progressoid]

48. +1

[Chiquitita]

49. Some forms of buddhism

[Nitram]

50. Actually, Chiquita, you are correct.

The Vipassana meditation I studied had a great deal in common with the scientific method.

[awoke_in_2003]

45. What a bunch of tripe. nt

[FrodosPet]

46. So ethics has no place in science?

Science is IMPORTANT. Quite honestly, if I were to have a religion, it would be science. But I don't have a religion.

My point is that consideration should be given over how scientific inquiry and technological development is conducted. Public safety and personal dignity must always be considered, and experimentation which hazards them must be reconsidered, modified, or outright prohibited. My apologies if it comes off as anti-science.

[awoke_in_2003]

47. No, I am objecting

to you saying anything done in the name of "double blind deity" is acceptable and that science is a religion.

[Nitram]

51. Your point is well taken, Frodo.

[Cicada]

54. Giving people food when they are hungry is not hazardous

We have no idea whether many foods are better for health than others. But we know eating is better than not eating. Randomly giving undernourished people diet one vs diet two does not subject them to any known hazard. Why don't we do this? No one is forced or tricked into accepting this free food. No one is given a diet expected to be healthier than the other diet.

[Cicada]

53. No it would not be unethical

We do not know if diet one is better or worse than diet two. It is not unethical to improve their diet with one or the other diets.

[Orrex]

55. Unethical and dishonest.

If you don't know if one diet is better or worse than the other, then on what basis will you distinguish the components of one diet from the other when you're handing out food to your victims?

Further, you probably at least suspect that one diet is worse than the other; otherwise what are you testing? Pretending that you don't know the difference is dishonest--or culpably irresponsible at the very least.

If you have reason to suspect that one is worse than the other, then it's unethical to dump the inferior food on to your victims. Unless, of course, You disclose that one sample of food is better than the other, and you'd need to obtain informed consent from your victims. And in that case, you'd be tainting your results, since the victims would have an incentive to select the better food, thereby compromising the control group.


In short, experimenting on people without their informed consent is unethical, and victimizing the poor because they're convenient for your agenda is monstrous.

[Cicada]

62. So just let them starve. Good ethical choice.

We can't be sure which nutritious diet, one or two, is better for this group of poor people so the right thing to do is not do this scientific study. Better to just not do it and let them starve.

I am surprised to learn that giving poor undernourished people free nutritious food is unethical.

[Orrex]

64. Ah, yes. The false dichotomy. Classic!

We can't be sure which nutritious diet, one or two, is better for this group of poor people so the right thing to do is not do this scientific study. Better to just not do it and let them starve.

Well that's idiotic, and it's clearly not my assertion.

You're pretending that we have no concept of nutrition or healthy diet, which is bullshit. On top of that, you're imagining that the only choice is between feeding your bullshit to poor people and starving them altogether.

In point of fact, we do have a pretty good idea of what constitutes a healthy and nutritious diet, and we should make that available to the people who require government assistance. Despite your nightmarish suggestion, we certainly should not use their poverty to justify some sort of bullshit experiment on them.

What you propose is, as correctly noted above, both unethical and dishonest.


Assuming that you're not simply a troll, the fact that you maintain your support of your grotesque proposition reveals quite a bit about you.

[madokie]

8. This is sick

I'm hoping you forgot this

[nolabear]

16. Two words: Tuskeegee Experiment.

You don't screw around with peoples' health, even if they're poor, or, you know, black.

[Dorian Gray]

25. Um...............

Poor people????

WTF

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

30. Seriously? That would be incredibly unethical.

[suffragette]

31. Like the Quaker Oats radioactive oatmeal experiment?

Yes, that really happened and shows how callous corporations can be when they regard a group of people as poor and/or unwanted.

http://www.nytimes.com/1998/01/01/us/settlement-reached-in-suit-over-radioactive-oatmeal-experiment.html?_r=0

A group of former students who ate radioactive oatmeal as unwitting participants in a food experiment will share a $1.85 million settlement from Quaker Oats and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

More than 100 boys at the Fernald School in Waltham, Mass., were fed cereal containing radioactive iron and calcium in the 1940's and 1950's. The diet was part of an experiment to prove that the nutrients in Quaker oatmeal travel throughout the body.

Quaker and M.I.T. agreed last week to pay to settle the class-action lawsuit, which covers about 30 people. A hearing is scheduled for April 6 to make the settlement final.

~~~

The boys, many of whom were wards of the state and inaccurately classified as mentally retarded, joined the Fernald Science Club in the late 1940's and early 1950's.

[Maru Kitteh]

36. Jesus H Chrysler. I'd never heard of that one. Thanks for posting it.

If we had a smiley for utter and complete disappointment, this is where it would go.

[suffragette]

39. I learned about it years ago on DU.

I can't remember who posted it back then, but it has stayed in my mind as an example of the callousness of some corporations toward those not well off and lacking power.


Here's more info:
https://bioethicsarchive.georgetown.edu/achre/final/chap7_5.html
A particularly poignant dimension of the unfairness of using institutionalized children as subjects of research is that it permits investigators to secure cooperation by offering as special treats what other, noninstitutionalized children would find far less exceptional. The extra attention of a "science club," a quart of milk, and an occasional outing were for the boys at Fernald extraordinary opportunities. As Mr. Boyce put it:

I won't tell you now about the severe physical and mental abuse, but I can assure you, it was no Boys' Town. The idea of getting consent for experiments under these conditions was not only cruel but hypocritical. They bribed us by offering us special privileges, knowing that we had so little that we would do practically anything for attention; and to say, I quote, "This is their debt to society," end quote, as if we were worth no more than laboratory mice, is unforgivable.[92]
Even when a child was able to resist the offers of special attention and refused to participate in the experiment, the investigators seem to have been unwilling to respect the child's decision. One MIT researcher, Robert S. Harris, explicitly noted that "it seemed to [him] that the three subjects who objected to being included in the study [could] be induced to change their minds."[93] Harris believed that the recalcitrant children could be "induced" to join in the study by emphasizing "the Fernald Science Club angle of our work."[94]

And here:
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/31/us/44-years-later-the-truth-about-the-science-club.html

[Maru Kitteh]

41. It is an excellent example of the powerful using the weak as "disposable" people

Corporations doing this is par for the course and thoroughly unsurprising.

It's painful to see how many people who were scientists and medical professionals involved in such a betrayal to their creed. It reaffirms the need for strong and ongoing ethics training for professionals working with vulnerable populations. Corporations will always be mindless and prone to malevolence. Humans working within these entities must be the conscience they will never have.

[suffragette]

42. I wish I could recommend your post. It is absolutely spot on.

Completely agree about the need for "strong and ongoing ethics training."
There needs to be much more emphasis on this in education as well and it should begin early.

[Maru Kitteh]

34. Ethics classes in high school

Should be mandatory.

[womanofthehills]

60. Won't help the psychopaths

[Maru Kitteh]

65. so it would seem nt

[tymorial]

3. Guacamole

Yummy

[Dorian Gray]

26. Guac

is Perfect Food.

[Chakab]

15. Your post shows how well the propaganda has worked. You cannot put Betty Crocker frosting

and Magic Shell in the same category as any cut of beef no matter how fatty it is.

Firstly, the frosting and the Magic Shell contain a TON of sugar. Secondly, they also contain (or at least they used to) trans fat, which is artificial, and much worse than than any animal fat.


RE Margarine. That comparison doesn't make sense either. Some brands of margarine are made with olive oil.

[Dorian Gray]

27. It makes sense

in comparison to the first. I'm not saying a marbled steak is equal to magic shell. I'm saying salmon is a healthier fat than marbled steak.

And while some margarine may contain olive oil, it's highly processed and not a better choice than butter. Choose butter. Or olive oil.

[Dorian Gray]

28. Eating well isn't too difficult

just choose non-processed foods MOST of the time. It'll make it much easier to avoid trans-fats and highly processed sugars.

And things that are natural, like steak, you'll do better to choose grass fed. More omega 3s when they aren't force fed corn and antibiotics.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. Hemp oil

it's what keeps my coat nice and shiny

[wishstar]

5. Many people don't know sugar raises triglycerides/cholesterol

Due to how liver processes sugars- I didn't know until about 10 years ago when I asked my new doctor why my cholesterol was borderline high but I exercised a lot , ate no fried foods, no meat and almost no saturated fats. Eliminating sugar has helped.

[SunSeeker]

14. How did you manage to eliminate sugar?

My doctor gave me the same talk your doctor gave you. But I couldn't eliminate sugar, it is in everything, even if I could overcome my addiction to chocolate.

[Chakab]

17. It's easier than you think. I've been maintaining my weight with a keto diet for a couple of years

now. The idea of almost totally cutting carbs out of my diet was literally laughable to me before I actually tried.

Once you stop consuming sugars altogether, the cravings go away. I just have no interest in the stuff anymore.

[SunSeeker]

22. Yes, my doctor said that about the cravings going away when you eliminate sugar.

But I have never been able to eliminate sugar.

Do you have kids in your house? I think I would have to wait until my 12 year old leaves the house before I could do something like that.

[True Dough]

32. How about stevia?

Use it? Seems like a safe alternative from what I've read. I've sampled it and I'm not turned off by the after-taste that some people complain about.

[Divine Discontent]

66. I wish many items were made with it that aren't! I like the taste, and don't notice anything n/t

[knightmaar]

18. It's *in* everything?

That's the key there, I think.

I stopped buying things that have stuff in them. Instead I buy just the stuff I want.

Breakfast can based on almonds, cheese, celery and carrots. There's nothing *in* there but some sugar in the carrots. Stir fries are prepared from scratch with smaller amounts of seasoning and scooped onto a plate with some rice.

Buy ingredients, not things with ingredients already in them.

[SunSeeker]

20. I have a 12 year old and work full time.

Packaged food and drive thru meals are unfortunately a fact of life for working moms.

[knightmaar]

21. That ain't easy

The two of you would have to really enjoy cooking in order to make that work, make your own stir fries, chilis and what not on the weekend, and just have them ready to re-heat during the week.

On the other hand, a breakfast based on nuts and vegetables requires zero prep once the veggies are washed, and you get almost no sugar.

Fortunately (maybe), this revelation regarding sugar might cause a beneficial change in pre-packaged meals too.

[nolabear]

19. I spent a couple of months on a ketogenic diet recently. I'm hoping to resume it.

And yeah, I blew out of it after a couple of months because it's so damned hard not to eat more than 20g. carbs a day. Also, I didn't lose weight, but that's another issue. What did happen, I believe, is a great reduction in inflammation and once I got over the initial couple of weeks, which admittedly had a cold turkey "keto flu" feel to them, I felt good.

That said, you're right. Sugar is in EVERYTHING. I ate a lot of greens and green veggies, meats (non-processed), a shocking amount of bacon, eggs, I learned tricks to make "bread" based on almond flour, lots of salmon, and enough coconut oil to lubricate a truck. And cheese. And Chichironnes, which I recall from my Southern youth but still can't quite get over them not being poison.

Chocolate...I managed to develop a taste for ricotta cheese with a little stevia and dark cocoa powder, which will be your best friend. Stevia is one of the only artificial sweeteners that's not actively bad for you. It's meh, but you can get used to it.

I lost it at Mr. Bear's birthday party. A friend makes a mean cake. Usually though the hard things not to eat are rice and potatoes. My usual diet isn't bad but it's not ketogenic. I say I want to get back on it because I think it did me some good, but that 20g.might be undoable. Atkins is 50g. I wouldn't be surprised if the average daily diet,and I don't mean a junk food diet, isn't in the hundreds.

Btw, vodka and Scotch have no carbs.

[womanofthehills]

56. Shop on the outside aisles of the supermarket

Avoid processed foods. Lots of dark chocolates now have less sugar.

I love chocolate too - I started slicing up bananas in small pieces, drizzling them with dark chocolate and freezing them. So I still get a little chocolate.

[Orrex]

7. I'm going to wait a week until the prevailing wisdom switches 180° again

[Cryptoad]

11. When I was a whippersnapper,,,,,

I worried about living forever, too

[PatSeg]

10. Fortunately I discovered Adele Davis

back in the sixties and have viewed sugar as a dietary villain ever since.

[womanofthehills]

57. I discovered her than too

and I joined a food co-op in the 60's. The same co-op in still in NM but it's grown big time.

I eat organically, use lots of good oils, grass fed beef, etc. so I feel I can always have a little dark chocolate. Actually, with dark chocolate, you get some antioxidants with your sugar.

[PatSeg]

63. Many lessons I've learned from her

have stayed with me for decades. I've strayed from the healthy path many times and have had my share of bad habits, but I've usually had "good intentions"!

Now that I'm older, I tend to be more consistent. The consequence of bad habits is much more real and present.

[Botany]

13. high-fructose corn syrup

Is the real devil and it is in just about everything too.

[womanofthehills]

58. Yuck! Lots of trains in my area with tank cars full of corn syrup

Turned me off to corn syrup fast and forever.

[Tommy_Carcetti]

23. How about you just eat smaller portions, snack less and exercise more?

That seems to work better than simply denying yourselves various categories of foods (i.e. fats, carbs, etc.)

Worked well for me. I'm down 50 pounds over the past two years (approximately 20% of my top body weight), blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar are all normal, and I didn't obsesses over low carb/low fat/low whatever dieting.

[GliderGuider]

24. Different people have different dietary issues.

There is no "one size fits all" approach to diet.

I have a fairly severe metabolic syndrome, and any significant quantity of carbs play hell with my mind and body. Lucky I prefer bacon to ice cream!

[Blue Idaho]

29. There are plenty of other sources that confirm this research.

Let's face it - big Sugar pulled the wool over most people's eyes. Today we are still operating under the misinformation that has caused a huge spike in diabetes worldwide.

[womanofthehills]

59. Remember when we were told to avoid egg yokes - we were just supposed to eat the white

I never bought into it. Egg yokes are amazingly healthy. The total egg has almost every vitamin and mineral in it along with healthy fatty acids. Cut out the yoke and you cut out iron, potassium, folate, selenium, Vit A,E,B,D, biotin, choline, etc.

Frozen egg white substitutes were available - how disgusting. Let's eat this chemical substitute instead of a natural egg.

[HuckleB]

33. Industry sucks, but this is a more balanced take on the story.

It argues that all industry sucks, basically.

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/sugar-industry-research/

"...

I think this latest round of information can only be understood in the context of the longstanding diet wars. Heart disease has become the number one cause of death, as life expectancy has increased and we have reduced many other causes of mortality.

Overweight and obesity are also diseases of modern civilization which is characterized by abundance and an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Further, the food industry is driven by market forces which favor tasty foods, which often means being high in fat and/or sugar.

...

A recent study comparing high fat, high sugar, and a “prudent” diet (essentially a moderate diet) also reveals this basic pattern of not seeing much difference. They looked at all cause mortality, heart deaths and heart events. The high fat diet was associated with increased overall mortality, but not heart deaths or events. The high sugar diet was associated with a borderline but not significant trend toward higher heart deaths and events but not overall deaths. The prudent diet had no increased risk.

There are also various food industries that would love for the research to show that the food they produce is the healthiest – for example, the sugar industry, the dairy industry, and the meat industry. All these industries fund research hoping to show that their product is healthful.

..."

[Orrex]

35. Well how am I supposed to panic when you post level-headed stuff like this?

I was all set to light my hair on fire, but now I have to be measured and reasonable.

Thanks a lot, you fink.

[Maru Kitteh]

38. Lolz! Reasonable people SUCK!

[HuckleB]

40. Apparently you can still get angry!

According to the poster in the Skepticism forum, anyway, Novella's piece is all about ignoring corruption!

Grrrrrrr.

[womanofthehills]

61. Actually Novella is in with industry

promoting GMO's, glyphosate, and putting down organic food - which he did in the last paragraph.

[Warpy]

37. Well, it sort of does, but all saturated fats aren't alike

Once they started to investigate why heavy meat eaters who avoided processed food like bakery goods and snack foods generally didn't develop the same degree of arterial plaque they were seeing even in children, they realized the devastating effect that trans fats (used to prolong shelf life and not found in nature) were having on the human body. So yes, saturated fats are implicated but not the natural ones like lard and butter.

As to the effect the grants from the Sugar Association had on research, it was rather like the effect the grants from Big Tobacco had on tobacco research, biased "studies" were done but the erroneous conclusion that animal fats were the sole culprit was well on its way long before they came through. Only when diabetes research (which the Sugar Association didn't have a prayer of affecting) and cardiovascular research met in the middle as metabolic syndrome was defined did they know that saturated fats weren't working alone.

So what's the solution? I like Pollan's advice: eat food, not too much, mostly plants. You can't go wrong doing that.

Also realize that science is a process. A hundred years from now, people will wonder why we were silly enough to focus on carbs as the demons in our diets.

[suffragette]

43. One of the researchers went on to help create US dietary guidelines

This raises the question of how much these were guided by industry influence.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/13/well/eat/how-the-sugar-industry-shifted-blame-to-fat.html?_r=0


The Harvard scientists and the sugar executives with whom they collaborated are no longer alive. One of the scientists who was paid by the sugar industry was D. Mark Hegsted, who went on to become the head of nutrition at the United States Department of Agriculture, where in 1977 he helped draft the forerunner to the federal government’s dietary guidelines. Another was Dr. Fredrick J. Stare, the chairman of Harvard’s nutrition department.


https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/d-mark-hegsted-national-force-in-science-of-human-nutrition-dies/

Boston, MA — D. Mark Hegsted, who was instrumental in the development of the federal “Dietary Guidelines for Americans,” died on Tuesday, June 16, 2009, at the age of 95 at a nursing center in Westwood, MA. Hegsted was a founding member of the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), among the first such departments in a medical or public health school in the world.

[Locrian]

52. Sugar Coated (documentary)

http://sugarcoateddoc.com/

"If you want to know how sugar politics really works, see this film!"