According to the New York Times, the sugar industry conspired with top scientists to shift the blame for the cause of many health problems.
The American Sugar Association paid off Harvard scientists to lie about what roles sugar and fat play in your diet. Even though there was plenty of evidence to prove them wrong, these scientists cherry-picked only the studies that supported their scheme.
Their goal was to reduce or eliminate the role that sugar plays in heart disease. They had to have a bad guy, so they suggested that fat played a bigger role than it actually does. Their review appeared in the highly trusted New England Journal of Medicine in 1967.
Internal sugar industry documents were uncovered by a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco. According to the Times, the documents suggest “many of today’s dietary recommendations may have been largely shaped by the sugar industry.”
Makes you take a different look at the validity of the food pyramid, doesn't it? In fact, this article at Mother Jones reports broadly on the lies perpetrated by the government and academics that have led to our diabetes epidemic.
Harvard has not admitted to the corruption of their top luminaries, including the chairman of the nutrition department, Dr. Fredrick J. Stare.
D. Mark Hegsted, another co-author of the study, went on to head up the nutrition department at the United States Department of Agriculture. He was also one of the people behind the 1977 Dietary Guidelines. U.S. Dietary Guidelines not only have great influence on Americans, but worldwide as well.
Though not admitting to the corruption, the Harvard School of Public Nutrition took a different position in 2013.
They released a statement saying that it was time to end the low-fat myth. They admitted that while going low-fat has helped some people, it hasn’t helped the nation as a whole control their weight or become healthier. Fats and oils were responsible for around 45% of the calories that people ate in the 60's and around 13% of adults were obese and less than 1% had Type 2 Diabetes. Now Americans are eating less fat, only around a third of their calories from fat. The number of obese people has risen to 34% and now 11% of Americans suffer from Type 2 Diabetes.
The Times article showed how the food industry used the medical publishing standards at the time to essentially commit fraud. The industry continues to engage in practices to mislead the public. In 2015, the Times reported on efforts by Coca-Cola. It's provided millions of dollars in research funding to cover up the link between sugary drinks and our obesity epidemic.
Healthy fats have been in the doghouse for years because of industry and government deception. But that has begun to change in recent years. We reported on some great findings about fat and diabetes here…
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