‘The Sugar Conspiracy’
Wow, this 2016 ‘long read’ article by Ian Leslie in the Guardian is just brilliant!
It covers just about everything – the influential names: John Yudkin, Ancel Keyes, Gary Taubes, Nina Teicholz, Robert Lustig, the 1980 dietary guidelines, the physiology of T2DM, and the unscientific nature of a lot of the nutritional research underpinning current dietary advice, the role of the internet in flattening the information hierarchy and making information accessible to all with access to the internet (an ‘information democracy’ to replace an ‘information oligarchy’) and the nutritional establishment ‘skilled at ad hominem takedowns’ of dissenting voices.
There were so many great snippets I could have included, but I wanted to highlight the role of Professor John Yudkin, an early dissenting voice who dared to sound the alarm about the dangers of sugar, and who paid a steep professional price for his efforts. He is a hero; he tried his best to sound the alarm but he was one man up against very powerful and influential opponents.
Here are the last 2 paragraphs:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
Wow, this 2016 ‘long read’ article by Ian Leslie in the Guardian is just brilliant!
It covers just about everything – the influential names: John Yudkin, Ancel Keyes, Gary Taubes, Nina Teicholz, Robert Lustig, the 1980 dietary guidelines, the physiology of T2DM, and the unscientific nature of a lot of the nutritional research underpinning current dietary advice, the role of the internet in flattening the information hierarchy and making information accessible to all with access to the internet (an ‘information democracy’ to replace an ‘information oligarchy’) and the nutritional establishment ‘skilled at ad hominem takedowns’ of dissenting voices.
There were so many great snippets I could have included, but I wanted to highlight the role of Professor John Yudkin, an early dissenting voice who dared to sound the alarm about the dangers of sugar, and who paid a steep professional price for his efforts. He is a hero; he tried his best to sound the alarm but he was one man up against very powerful and influential opponents.
Here are the last 2 paragraphs:
‘Professor John Yudkin retired from his post at Queen Elizabeth College in 1971, to write Pure, White and Deadly. The college reneged on a promise to allow him to continue to use its research facilities. It had hired a fully committed supporter of the fat hypothesis to replace him, and it was no longer deemed politic to have a prominent opponent of it on the premises. The man who had built the college’s nutrition department from scratch was forced to ask a solicitor to intervene. Eventually, a small room in a separate building was found for Yudkin.
When I asked Lustig why he was the first researcher in years to focus on the dangers of sugar, he answered: “John Yudkin. They took him down so severely – so severely – that nobody wanted to attempt it on their own.”’
When I asked Lustig why he was the first researcher in years to focus on the dangers of sugar, he answered: “John Yudkin. They took him down so severely – so severely – that nobody wanted to attempt it on their own.”’
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/07/the-sugar-conspiracy-robert-lustig-john-yudkin
