The sugar conspiracy

[LONDONER]

And only now do some people realise!!

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/...ohn-yudkin

[Insertnamehere]

It's a simple matter to read the labels really.

But this in an interesting topic, because it makes up for a conjuction of elements that lead to the problem and shared responsibility between the media, corporate interests and the scientific world.

The first tends, by omission, manipulation or simple lack of understanding, to distort the information available and that's how nonsense reaches the general audience, who are not knowledgeable enough to discriminate fact from conjecture, truth from fallacies, etc.

I remember, for instance, a news anchor talking about a case of the cholera "virus", when it should be basic knowledge that Vibrio cholerae is a bacterium, and that bacteria and viruses are vastly different pathogens.

Corporate entities have monetary power to intervene in political and other upper level affairs, to suit their interests and this extends to some individuals in the scientific world, who are always in need of funding for research.

Then we have the scientific community, in this specific case, nutritionist science, who have historically had a tendency to form "guilds" and be hostile (in a very huiman way, might I add) to change, to the point of sometimes overlooking actual evidence.

All 3 items discussed are making a poor use of the scientific method and the information provided by it.

Nowadays, this last bit happens less, if at all because it's easier to publish results with a wide reach, so if the work is well done, statistically validated and neatly presented, it will be up for discussion, more people will try to study the same topic and then more information about it will be produced.

I don't say it doesn't happen because there aren't any "mainstream thinking lines", cause there are, but because these lines are no longer completely off chart and the simple result of traditions and aversion to change. Now these lines have foundation and they can be added to or changed depending on new found evidence.

For example, Einstein's relativity, a revolutionary new concept, didn't invalidate Newtonian physics, but simply came to explain that it was not applicable in the macro-systems of the Universe. But, Newtonian physics still is very much valid within our own limited system here on Earth.

This is very different than Copernicus completely invalidating Geocentrism, which had very little in which to base itself to begin with.

Same can be said about the atomic model. Each new model didn't invalidate the previous one, but built upon it and added new complexity and additional information.

Still, every now and then, one person can come who will revolutionize the status quo in the scientific mainstream. That is called a paradigm shift. Copernicus, Newton, Lavoisier, etc were paradigm shifters. Some paradigm shift were very crucial because they destroyed traditional and mistaken views.

In this particular topic, something like this happened.

Although the mainstream view of the danger in excess consumption of saturated fat is not mistaken and has evidence to support it, it doesn't give you the whole picture. Now we know that sugar is also a pivotal health hazard when consumed in excess.