Why Do We Fear Saturated Fat? The answer to that is: systematic brainwashing by the sugar industry and government! Just over a year ago now, it came to light that internal documents to the Sugar Research Foundation (now the Sugar Association) were discovered by a researcher, Cristin E, Kearns, at the University of San Francisco. These show that three Harvard scientists were paid to publish an article in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in 1967 which played down the role of sugar in cardiovascular disease and instead pointed a finger at Saturated Fat. One of these scientists, Dr. Frederick J. Stare, was the chairman of Harvard’s nutrition department. Another, D. Mark Hegsted, went on to become head of nutrition at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) where, in 1977, he helped draft the forerunner to the federal government’s USDA guidelines that were adopted by the McGovern Commission later that year.
These low-fat, high-carbohydrate recommendations prevail to this day and have permeated the entire English-speaking world (at the very least) and have resulted in a catastrophic epidemic of Obesity, Type 2 Diabetes, Heart Disease and many other chronic illnesses. The USDA has been forced to back-peddle on the issue of cholesterol in the guidelines recently, although these changes have been introduced without any publicity at all. You can read more about this fiasco in another one of our posts here.
Stanton A. Glantz, PhD, a professor of medicine at UCSF, and two of his colleagues published a paper in JAMA Internal Medicine where they lay out the evidence of this corruption. They also show that documentation exists exposing a systematic campaign to maintain this illusion that continues to this day! Just last year, The New York Times published and article revealing that Coca-Cola funded a project to the tune of millions of dollars seeking to debunk the association of sugary drinks with obesity. In another NYT article it was stated: “The Associated Press reported that candy makers were funding studies that claimed that children who eat candy tend to weigh less than those who don’t”.
In 1964, studies were already beginning to point to a correlation between high-sugar diets and heart disease, the incidents of which were climbing alarmingly at the time. The unearthed documents capture discussions that a major executive in the sugar industry, John Hickson, has with other industry players about shifting the focus using industry funded research. “Then we can publish the data and refute our detractors,” he wrote. Hickson enlisted the help of the Harvard researchers in 1965 and paid them $6,500 (equivalent to $49,000 today) to write a review debunking the evidence on sugar and fingering saturated fat as the demon. Dr. Hegsted responded, writing, “We are well aware of your particular interest and will cover this as well as we can.”
It was during this time that Ancel Keys was pushing his Diet-Heart Hypothesis really hard in an attempt to make a name for himself which you can read more about here. Hickson discussed early drafts with the Harvard team and expressed satisfaction with what he saw, writing, “Let me assure you this is quite what we had in mind, and we look forward to it’s appearance in print.” The review was finally published in 1967 and the rest is history!
Check out the video by Dr. David Diamond, PhD below. Dr. Diamond received his Ph.D. in Biology in 1985, with a specialization in Behavioural Neuroscience, from the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine. He was a career scientist at the Department of Veterans Affairs for 30 years and is currently a Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida, where he has directed his research program on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Dr. Diamond has served on federal government study sections and committees evaluating research on the neurobiology of stress and memory, and has over 100 publications, reviews and book chapters on the brain and memory. He has served on the editorial boards of numerous medical journals and has received 30 years of federally funded support for his neuroscience research.
In the past decade, Dr. Diamond has expanded his research program to include cardiovascular disease, medication and nutrition. In recent years he added to his extensive list of medical publications, controversial papers on heart disease, diet and cholesterol. He has been invited to present his research on nutrition, saturated fat and cholesterol at numerous domestic and international cardiology, obesity and diabetes conferences. Dr. Diamond’s research on nutrition resulted in his appointment to The Nutrition Coalition, a national U.S. board of clinicians and scientists who have the goal of providing an evidence-based evaluation of U.S. government dietary recommendations.
[Doug Reynolds: Founder – LowCarbUSA®]
