Dr. Ancel Keys, a prominent physiologist and nutrition researcher during the mid-20th century played a pivotal role in promoting the idea that dietary fat, particularly saturated fat, was the primary cause of heart disease. Paid indirectly by the sugar industry, his work heavily influenced public health guidelines for decades.
Ancel Keys and the Sugar Industry:
Keys' "Cherry-picked" Research:
Keys is best known for his "Seven Countries Study," which examined the relationship between diet, lifestyle, and cardiovascular disease. This study became the foundation for the belief that saturated fats caused heart disease.
However, Keys' research has been criticized for "cherry-picking" data, as he initially studied 22 countries but included only the 7 that supported his hypothesis.
The Sugar Industry Connection:
In the 1960s, it came to light that the Sugar Research Foundation (now the Sugar Association) paid prominent Harvard scientists, including Dr. Fredrick Stare and Dr. Mark Hegsted, to downplay the role of sugar in heart disease and shift the blame to dietary fats.
These efforts, revealed in 2016 through historical documents, successfully influenced public health policies and scientific discourse, deflecting attention from sugar's role in chronic diseases.
Impact on Dietary Guidelines:
The collaboration between biased research and the sugar industry helped cement low-fat, high-carbohydrate diets in the U.S. dietary guidelines, contributing to the prominence of the carbohydrate-heavy food pyramid.
What We Know Today:
Modern research has challenged these claims, showing that:
Sugar and refined carbohydrates play a significant role in the development of obesity, type 2 diabetes, and heart disease.
Healthy fats, such as those from avocados, nuts, seeds, and olive oil, are beneficial and do not inherently contribute to heart disease when consumed in moderation.
This shift in understanding has led to a re-evaluation of public health recommendations and growing criticism of the flawed dietary advice propagated during Keys' era.
The critical events regarding the sugar industry's influence on dietary science and the blame shift to fats happened in the 1960s:
1965: The Sugar Research Foundation (SRF) paid prominent Harvard scientists, including Dr. Mark Hegsted and Dr. Fredrick Stare, the equivalent of about $50,000 in today’s money to conduct a review. This review was designed to downplay the role of sugar in heart disease and instead place the blame on saturated fats.
1967: The scientists published their review in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), which claimed that fats and cholesterol were the primary dietary causes of heart disease while minimizing any role of sugar. At the time, the journal did not require authors to disclose conflicts of interest, so the sugar industry’s funding was not disclosed.
This research and the narrative it pushed had long-lasting effects, influencing the development of low-fat, high-carb dietary guidelines in the 1970s and 1980s, including the creation of the carbohydrate-heavy food pyramid in 1992.
These revelations came to light much later, in 2016, when historical documents were uncovered and published in JAMA Internal Medicine, exposing the sugar industry's role in shaping dietary science.
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