Sugar industry influenced research on cavity prevention

Liz Szabo | USA TODAY

The sugar industry helped shape the National Institute of Health's efforts to reduce dental cavities in the 1960s and '70s, according to a study published today.

Internal industry documents show the industry knew sugar caused tooth decay as early as 1950 but pushed government researchers to focus on prevention strategies other than reducing sugar consumption, according to the study, published in PLoS Medicine.

The industry funded research on enzymes to break up dental plaque and vaccines against tooth decay as a way to deflect attention from the simpler strategy of telling Americans to cut back on sugary drinks and snacks, the study says.

The study is based on an archive of 319 industry documents, housed at the University of Illinois and discovered in 2010 by a researcher at the University of California-San Francisco. More than 1,500 pages of documents include correspondence among sugar industry executives, meeting minutes and reports from 1959 to 1961.

In 1971, the National Institute of Dental Research, part of the NIH, created a research plan for cavity prevention. Almost 80% of the sugar industry's recommendations ended up in the plan, the study says. Proposals that could have hurt the sugar industry were left out, the study says.

"The dental community has always known that preventing tooth decay required restricting sugar intake," said co-author Cristin Kearns, a UCSF postdoctoral student who discovered the documents. "It was disappointing to learn that the policies we are debating today could have been addressed more than 40 years ago."

Tooth decay is the leading chronic disease among American children, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than half of kids and teens have cavities in their adult teeth, and 16% of children ages 6 to 9 have untreated tooth decay.

The sugar industry's involvement in cavity prevention research parallels the tobacco industry's involvement in the 1970s in National Cancer Institute research into making safer cigarettes, the paper says. The NCI eventually abandoned that idea.

"The parallels to the tobacco industry's denial of the harmful effects of smoking are alarming," said Ronald Burakoff, chairman of dental medicine at Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New Hyde Park, N.Y., who was not involved in the new study.

Tonya Allen, a spokeswoman for the Sugar Association, an industry group, said the authors are using "scare tactics" by comparing sugar to tobacco, which is known to cause cancer, and questioned the need to "dredge up history."

"It is challenging for the current Sugar Association staff to comment directly on documents and events that allegedly occurred before and during Richard Nixon's presidency," Allen said.

Allen said the Sugar Association endorses advice from the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans, written by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture. The most effective way to reduce cavities, according to those guidelines, is through "a combined approach of reducing the amount of time sugars and starches are in the mouth, drinking fluoridated water and brushing and flossing teeth."

Sugar consumption continues to be a hot political issue.

When Michael Bloomberg was mayor of New York, he tried to ban sales of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces in 2012. Courts struck the law down.

The World Health Organization recently called for people to reduce consumption of added sugars — as opposed to the natural sugar found in fruit — to less than 10% of daily calories.

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed listing added sugars on food labels, a change that the Sugar Association opposes.



