Controversial sugar industry study on cancer uncovered

An old study is now shedding new light on the sugar industry's controversial past, and its secrets are being revealed in a new paper.

The 1960s study, which suggests a link between a high-sugar diet and high blood cholesterol levels and cancer in rats, was sponsored by the sugar industry, according to the perspective paper published in the journal PLOS Biology on Tuesday.

Yet the study itself was never published and has been forgotten until now.

"All we know is that the plug got pulled and nothing got published," said Stanton Glantz, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and a co-author of the new paper.

"Whether the investigator didn't bother to try or whether he tried and failed, we don't know. Or whether there was some kind of clause in his agreement with the sugar people that precluded him from publishing, we don't know," he said.

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