alt Hacker NewsSugar industry influenced researchers and blamed fat for CVD (2016)
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This meme is very healthy among MAHA, and Secretary Kennedy is overseeing an overhaul of the Dietary Guidelines, recasting saturated fat as a health food. There is a lot of speculation that we will soon see a new food pyramid that is an inverted version of the last one.
https://www.npr.org/sections/shots-health-news/2025/10/08/nx...
I wonder if it will keep flipping as administrations change.
Edit: The new guidelines are expected to be released today.
https://www.wfla.com/news/national/kennedy-wants-to-end-war-...
The new dietary guidelines are much more sensible IMO, compared to the food pyramid or MyPlate.
Do your own research, it's not that hard:
* Select a subset of diets that might fit your lifestyle.
* Make a list of categories you consume: refined sugars, all kinds of fats, gluten, dairy.
* Look for published papers on diets and categories.
I did a few dramatic changes throughout my life based on researches I did, not the hype. The first one was refined sugars for me and my kids - they didn't have a single cavity in baby and now permanent teeth. Pediatric dentist actually it's impressive, but little sugar here and there wouldn't harm with proper hygiene. One thing I learned about medical doctors is that they are not scientists, and unless they follow a protocol to diagnose and treat you, their opinion is often B.S. For adult, removing refined sugars reduced body fat percentage over time, but what's most important - lipid panel came to normal in about a year.
Here’s a gift link to a NYT article that was posted a few minutes ago:
Kennedy Flips Food Pyramid to Emphasize Red Meat and Whole Milk
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/07/well/rfk-jr-food-pyramid-...
For those like myself who didn't know, CVD = cardiovascular disease.
A good book that explains it all is The Case Against Sugar by Gary Taubes, which came out the same year as this article.
Like many truths, it's actually well-known and frequently discussed in public, but hard to hear amongst all the noise of corporate messaging and decades of bad dietary 'advice' from both public and private institutions.
To paraphrase the Oracle in the Matrix: What's really going to bake your noodle later on is--saturated fat isn't the culprit in CVD either. And that's equally well-supported yet drowned out for the same reasons ('nonfat all the things!').
As a child of the 1980s, I feel so cheated that we were told to eat "5 servings of grains a day" pointing to bread and pasta -- when so many breads have added sugar and so much pasta has added sugar in the sauce.
How did no one speak up? Would people ever have spoken up if we didnt have social media?
Aren't both sugar and saturated fat problemtic, and complementary in contributing to CVD?
One very minor side (art?) project I am doing:
https://kozubik.com/items/ThisisCandy/
… is a pushback of sorts on the sugar industry.
Has any one successfully code with same focus after cutting sugar? Seems sugar is really important for focus. Whats your experience?
Needs (2016) in the title - and all big industry plays these games with "science".
This isn't really a correct narrative. Diets high in saturated fat are correlated with CVD. Sugar is also correlated with poor metabolic health which is also correlated with CVD. Both are bad.
Best data is still Mediterranean- nuts, fruits vegetables, olive or avocado oil, and lean protein.
Doesn't both sugar and saturated fat contribute to CVD if consumed in excess?
Not sure if this has been posted (I see stephenwoo has mentioned him further down), but it's a break-down of how sugary foods damage the body, particularly fructose.
It's 16 years old about 30 years of previous research.
So most of these fat people today are a result of the low fat doctrine forged in the 70’s?
Sugar got into all the meal we have, and because it is so addictive, we went for it. Fatty meals are more healthy, especially for me, but will get you sick in no time, unless you eat healthy fats (olive oil, olives especially). The trans fats are carcinogenic
It would be cool if researchers weren't so easily bought. I thought the sciences attracted people of strong moral character but it would appear not.
Which will make you fatter?
A) Eating a pound/kg of fat
B) Eating a pound/kg of refined sugar
Sugar enters your blood stream almost immediately --- starting in your mouth. Unless you're doing heavy exercise and burning lots of calories, your body has to store most of this excess energy --- as fat.
The only way to get consumed fat into your bloodstream is to first convert it into sugar --- which itself burns some energy.
My understanding was that atherosclerotic plaques are comprised of cholesterol or fatty deposits [1] and that these can lead to CVD.
The fat mechanism I understand, but what is the mechanism for sugar in CVD?
[1] https://www.heart.org/en/health-topics/cholesterol/about-cho...
Should make flour from it: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266716032...
I feel like the same thing is happening now… processed foods have less sodium and I feel are more sugary. I don’t live a sedentary lifestyle…I need salt for hydration and muscle contraction. I find the new nutrition guidelines for sodium lacking.
The 2016 JAMA paper illustrates how funding sources can shape research focus, reinforcing the value of transparency and multiple lines of evidence in nutrition research.
I avoid sugar pretty thoroughly, but my cholesterol is high because I can't walk past a breakfast sandwich. This an n=1 observation.
What does "industry" mean. Which firms were involved? Were all firms involved?
I mean, anecdotal but I suffered metabolic syndrome. Cut out all carbs, increased my fat intake. This led to a loss of 50 pounds, my blood fat and blood cholesterol dropped, liver enzymes in the blood dropped, insulin resistance reversed, blood pressure dropped, and according to my blood, everything is now normal.
Big sugar exaggerated the skinny on fat?
Sorry to say but I see a lot of ill informed takes here on sugar, fats and their 'correlation' with CVD.
To put it bluntly, jut eat maintenance calories with most of it coming from good protein sources and eat good amount of fibre. No, dietary cholesterol isn't gonna kill you, nor is sugar but obviously that doesn't mean you eat tons of them.
And the most important is enough sleep and WORKOUTTTT. 240 min of cardio and resistant training combined. Is that a lot to do?
Why do you need to optimize each and every aspect of each nutrition? "Oh, I don't eat meat because it is correlated to heart disease, so I consume dairy. Oh wait it isnt exactly digestible so I consume vegetables. Oh wait, I will have to eat like KGs and Kgs of veggies to meet the nutrient requirement. Oh wait, that means I am eating tons of carbs". How about you stop brushing your ego and just keep it simple by having a sense of number of calories you want and then eat enough protein from natural sources.
Yeah, for sure if you have any beliefs which prevents you from eating something then by all means find alternatives and have processed food. Processed food is not necessarily bad. Whey protein is processed but it is very important for vegetarians. What grinds my gears is this push to find the ideal diet. Vegans hate carnivores. Carnivores make fun of vegans for eating veggies. Like bro, shut up.
This is on HNs homepage because it confirms what we want to believe about our favorite foods: saturated fat = bad is just a sugar industry psy-op!
But notice how "Sugar industry blames [saturated] fat for CVD" doesn't mean it's good for you. Their motive is to sell you sugar.
Just like finding evidence of the meat/dairy industry sowing FUD on saturated fat doesn't mean it's bad for you. Their motive is to sell you saturated fat.
We should instead look at our best converging contemporary evidence on how saturated fat impacts human heath outcomes, not wank off to blog posts like this.
Related (reason why OP submitted this today?):
Eat Real Food – Introducing the New Pyramid
I'm used to CAD as the acronym for this thing, but I'm just being pedantic
A casual look at where people live the oldest, what they eat, and what's recommended tell you all you need to know about food recommendations then and now.
It's a field where actual long term controlled experiments are impossible, confounding variables are everywhere, and multiple lobbies have vested interests in the outcomes.
I take everything with a grain of salt apart from studies of harm when sources are credible and numerous and even then, I'm not fully confident.
The only current advice I follow is avoiding industrially processed food. That sounds like a sound one as this kind of food is basically terra incognita. It's just applying the precaution principle.
Maybe I read too much history - but hasn't Big Sugar been known for "nothing that a slave trader wouldn't do" ethics for the past 300+ years?
Anoy other greybeards remember this one?
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/07/magazine/what-if-it-s-all...
What if It's All Been a Big Fat Lie?
By Gary Taubes July 7, 2002
I blame this book's incendiary title, was a fun read for sure
It seems one should not always "trust the science"
HFCS is another beast. Everyone needs to watch this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM
(2016)
Some other discussions:
2024 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41962750
2022 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32978590
2021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26126183
and on and on...
>Sugar Papers Reveal Industry Role in Shifting National Heart Disease Focus to Saturated Fat
But sugar-sweetened foods contain saturated fat ... so ?
CVD and links to saturated fats is a long, long established phenomenon and has a lot of science behind it. A single study or even studies should not invalidate or discount it. Before people misinterpret what this is saying.
Sugar may also contribute some to CVD but most cardiologists still think fats are the main driver of CVD.
As a teen I was fooled for a short time, confused about fats, types, etc. But I was a feral child and as ignorant as any animal. It didn't take long to figure things out after I learned to read.
I expect more of government though, and while I see the vague rationale behind hamfisted soda regulations, I remain deeply irked by the Fat Tax that Denmark once imposed. I offer no benefit of doubt and view that thankfully now bygone usurpation of the family table as unforgivable and implemented in full awareness of its flaws.
If one chooses to blame this on corporate influence and ignorance, then either way it exemplifies how easily fundamental aspects of our personal lives can be controlled based on deception.
Ain't sure about anyone else, but I certainly wonder how many other similar delusions we're subject to under such influence and "research'. I know of more than a few.
For me it begs the question of how and why we've allowed such centralized frameworks to persevere. Independent groups do exist, but then there's SEO, mainstream-media and all the other factors that make them practically invisible. And with abandonment of the Internet in favor of corporate friendly LLMs, I expect it to get worse.
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Error 1009 Access Denied. crap.
Calories are fake.
I am saying this as someone very much in shape. I can do 20 pull ups and 30 dips non-stop. I weigh myself every morning. I am big on seafood and typically eat clean. I still gain body fat on days I work out if I ever dare snack on anything. You have to be incredibly strict because I have no idea what they are putting in some of these things anymore.
It is even worse than statistics tell you because BMI will put people in the green even if they are visibly overweight because they have little muscle mass.
Edit: of course someone probably out of shape will downvote.
"the only people that would care about a funding a study, funded the study! see! that's proof!"
no conflict == no interest
I agree about the need for more transparency and more peer review actually being done
When this news first came out it was mind blowing, but at the same time I don't entirely get it.
So the money quote seems to be:
> The literature review heavily criticized studies linking sucrose to heart disease, while ignoring limitations of studies investigating dietary fats.
They paid a total of 2 people $50,000 (edit: in 2016 dollars).
That doesn't seem like enough to entirely shape worldwide discourse around nutrition and sugar. And the research was out there! Does everybody only read this single Harvard literature review? Does nobody read journals, or other meta studies, or anything? Did the researchers from other institutions whose research was criticized not make any fuss?
I guess the thing that I most don't get is it's now been 10 years since then, and I haven't seen any news about the link between sugar and CVD.
> There is now a considerable body of evidence linking added sugars to hypertension and cardiovascular disease
Okay, where is it? What are the conclusions? Is sugar actually contributing more than fat for CVD in most patients? Edit: Or, is the truth that fat really is the most significant, and sugar plays some role but it's strictly less?