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The sugar industry abruptly terminated funding for a study that suggested a possible link between sugar and bladder cancer nearly 50 years ago, according to a new review of industry documents.

The rat study — known as “Project 259” — was finding that the urine of rodents fed a high-sucrose (versus high-starch) diet contained higher levels of an enzyme that had been previously associated with bladder cancer in rats, according to the authors of the latest analysis of “the sugar papers” — a cache of internal memos, letters and company reports unearthed by University of California at San Francisco researchers.

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Project 259 also suggested a possible mechanism for how gut bacteria metabolize sugar to drive up triglycerides, a type of fat circulating in the blood that increases the risk of heart disease, the researchers report.

But the results of Project 259 were never published. After dismissing the study’s value as “nil,” the International Sugar Research Foundation put an end to its funding, according to the new analysis, published this week in the journal PLOS Biology.