New evidence shows the sugar industry in the US suppressed studies linking sugar to heart disease and cancer
Nutritionists caution that sugar, not fat, is largely to blame for many of the problems in our modern diets
By Hilary Brueck
For decades, sugar lobbyists have been taking aim at studies linking sugar and cancer.
When a study last year found that mice on sugar-heavy diets were more likely to develop breast cancer, the Sugar Association, one of the biggest sugar lobbying groups in the US, called it “sensationalised.” The group insists that “no credible link between ingested sugars and cancer has been established.”
But doctors and researchers claim the sugar industry may have been intentionally keeping research about that link from getting published. A new study in the journal PLOS Biology reveals how the Sugar Association worked to suppress scientific findings on the harmful effects of table sugar on rodents nearly 50 years ago.
The report details the results of two unpublished studies, known as Project 259, which were funded by the sugar lobby in the late 1960s. Both involved research on the effects of feeding sugar to rats.
In the first study, one group of rats was fed a balanced diet of cereal, beans, fish and yeast, while the other rats were given a high-sugar diet. The researchers found that the sugar eaters were at greater risk for strokes, heart attacks and heart disease, and had higher-than-normal levels of fat (triglycerides) in their blood.
The second study compared sugar-fed rats with starch-fed rats and found that the sugar-eating rodents were more likely to have elevated levels of an enzyme associated with bladder cancer in humans.