SugarScience Alerts
March 14, 2019
Tobacco companies hook kids on sugary drinks
Tobacco conglomerates that used colors, flavors and marketing techniques to entice children as future smokers transferred these same strategies to sweetened beverages when they bought food and drinks companies starting in 1963. The study by researchers at UC San Francisco, which draws from a cache of previously secret documents from the tobacco industry that is part of the UCSF Industry Documents Library, tracked the acquisition and subsequent marketing campaigns of sweetened drink brands by two leading tobacco companies and found that as tobacco was facing increased scrutiny from health authorities, its executives transferred the same products and tactics to peddle soft drinks.
Read ArticleJanuary 4, 2019
Sugar’s Sick Secrets: How Industry Forces Have Manipulated Science to Downplay the Harm
Why is our food saturated with all these sweeteners? When did they make their way into our yogurt, cereal, and oatmeal? How did they sneak into our salad dressing, soup, bread, lunch meat, pasta sauce, and pretzels? And, most crucially, what forces are responsible for this deluge, which is making some of us very sick? UCSF scientists are uncovering the answers to those questions.
Read ArticleSeptember 24, 2018
Unveiling UCSF's New Food Industry Documents Archive
The UCSF Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies and the UCSF Industry Documents Library are excited to announce the public launching of the New Food Industry Documents Archive. The event, held on November 15, 2018, featured a stellar lineup of speakers. For details of the symposium click the link below.
Read ArticleMarch 13, 2018
How to Stop Eating Sugar
If you live in the United States, you probably eat more sugar than is good for you. It’s probably not your fault, either. Added sweeteners are infused into a shocking number of foods. To help you give up the cravings for sugar, David Leonhardt, New York Times Op-Ed Columnist, has written a guide that was published in the New York Times.
Read ArticleFebruary 15, 2018
Using Art to Tackle Obesity and Diabetes in Youth
Between 2000 and 2009, the rate of Type 2 diabetes in children jumped more than 30 percent — and it is climbing especially fast among children from poor and minority families. Faced with these startling numbers, public health experts and arts educators have teamed up to try a novel approach to preventing the disease in young people.
Read ArticleJanuary 27, 2018
How neighborhoods shape life with diabetes
People with diabetes who live in poor communities with limited access to exercise facilities or grocery stores may have a harder time managing their symptoms than diabetics living in more affluent areas, a U.S. study suggests. A patient takes a blood glucose test during an event aimed to help people with diabetes to cope with their illness at Saint Luka diagnostics medical center in Sofia, November 13, 2012. REUTERS/Stoyan Nenov Communities with lower employment, income and education that have scant resources to support exercise and healthy eating have long been linked to an increased risk of developing diabetes. For the current study, however, researchers focused on 15,308 patients who already had diabetes to see if their neighborhoods might impact how well they lived with the disease.
Read ArticleNovember 28, 2017
Sugar Industry Suppressed Evidence of Health Risks of Sucrose
The sugar industry buried scientific research almost 50 years ago that pointed to negative health effects of sugar, ceasing funding the research when it reflected negatively on the industry's interests, according to a new UC San Francisco study. In a study published Nov. 21, 2017 in PLOS Biology, the authors said their analysis of internal documents bolsters evidence that the sugar industry has manipulated science in order to protect commercial interests, and to influence regulations and public opinion.
Read ArticleOctober 18, 2017
Nine-Year Collaboration Has Just Shown How Sugar Influences Cancer Cell Growth
There's a long-known relationship between cancer and sugar, but figuring out exactly how it works has proven elusive. Now, thanks to a nine-year research project, scientists have made a breakthrough. They've narrowed down the mechanism whereby cancer cells metabolise sugar. They've narrowed down the mechanism whereby cancer cells metabolise sugar. The focus of the new research was on a metabolic effect that has been understood for over 90 years.
Read ArticleSeptember 13, 2017
11th Annual Sugar, Stress, Environment, and Weight (SSEW) Symposium
The 11th Annual Sugar, Stress, Environment, and Weight (SSEW) Symposium, presented by the UCSF Center for Obesity Assessment, Study and Treatment (COAST) and the UCLA Resnick Program for Food Law and Policy, brings together leading researchers to present the latest science on how the food we eat and the stress we experience create a perfect storm, accelerating one of the most urgent public health crises of our time: the obesity epidemic.
Read ArticleAugust 11, 2017
New study suggests that sugar may impact both our mental and physical health
Research is now uncovering more information about just how consuming excess sugar impacts our overall health-not just our physical health but also our mental health. In a study that just became available online (July 2017) titled “Sugar intake from sweet food and beverages, common mental disorder and depression: prospective findings from the Whitehall II study†by Anika Knuppel, Shipley, Llewellyn and Brunner (21 November 2016) is the first of it’s kind to indicate that high intakes of sugar contributes to depression in men.
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