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Sugar’s Sick Secrets: How Industry Forces Have Manipulated Science to Downplay the Harm

By Science Alert

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. What they’re finding is that the food and beverage industry pushes sugary products, while obfuscating the significant health hazards of added sugars. UCSF researchers are scrutinizing this influence, scouring the research to better understand sugars’ link to disease, and fighting biased science by exposing industry tactics and educating the public.

Read more: Sugar’s Sick Secrets

 

Sugars

Sugars are chemicals made of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen found which taste sweet and are found in food. They are an important part of what we eat and drink and of our bodies. On this site, sugar is used to mean simple sugars (monosaccharides) like fructose or glucose, and disaccharides like table sugar (sucrose). Sucrose is two simple sugars stuck together for example (see Table sugar). Sugars are a type of carbohydrate. Carbohydrates are energy sources for our bodies Sugars enter the blood stream very quickly after being eaten.

SugarScience Glossary