WASHINGTON, Nov. 23(APP):The US sugar industry is accused of closing a study in the 1960s that linked sugar consumption to heart diseases, media reports said on Wednesday citing uncovered historical documents.
According to the report in the New York Times, a recent investigation conducted by the University of California and published in the journal PLOS Biology, indicated that the Sugar Industry chose to close the study whose findings suggested links between sugar consumption to cardiovascular and cancer disease.
The study was conducted in 1960s and funded by the powerful sugar industry to look into effects of the sugar consumption. However, when found that the sugar consumption was harmful, the industry instead pointed finger at fats, the report said.
The investigation conducted by the University of California quoting the newly uncovered historical documents revealed that the industry allegedly misled the industry to protect its economic interest.
The researchers from the California University after conducting the uncovered documents said that in 1968 the Sugar Research Foundation, which has ties to the Sugar Industry, funded animal research to explore the link between sugar consumption and cardiovascular disease.
Under the study, rats were fed with high-sugar diet and were found to have increased levels of triglyceride, a fatty substance in the bloodstream that increase the risk of heart attack in humans. The study also found a connection between sugar consumption and an enzyme associated with bladder cancer.
Unhappy with the findings, the Sugar industry chose to end the study and did not publish its result to protect it economic interest, the report said quoting the Californian researchers.
While the documents are several decades old, they are still significant in the sense that it showed how the sugar industry hid facts that showed the effects of sugar consumption on health, one of the investigators, Santon Glantz, told the NYT.
The Sugar Association, reacting to the report, said that it was “not a study but a perspective” and speculations that happened five decades ago.