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The scientific article on which our ideas regarding the risk factors of cardiovascular disease (CVD) are based were heavily sponsored by the American Sugar Association.
The article, published in 1967 by 3 Harvard authors in the highly renowned New England Medical Journal completely disregards the role of sugar in the cause of CVD and blames everything on fat.
JAMA, another renowned medical journal published an article in September, 2016, detailing how the 3 authors of the previously mentioned article were each given $50.000 to ignore any articles in medical literature that question the effects of sugar.
Articles in renowned journals, written by top scientists are a good way to settle scientific debates. The same happened here. In the 70s, there were 2 schools of thought in medicine: those who linked CVD to sugars and those who linked CVD to saturated fats. The article from ’67 put an end to that in a single swoop.
The American -and European- authorities removed fat from our foods and replaced it with sugar as a substitute…
A significant, but sad fact is that many pinpoint the late 60s as the start of the obesity epidemic.
PS: Since the 80s, scientists are (fortunately) obliged to mention any ties to the industry when they publish their works.
*(Kearns CE, Schmidt LA, Glantz SA. Sugar Industry and Coronary Heart Disease ResearchA Historical Analysis of Internal Industry Documents. JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(11):1680-1685.)