Information about the Aspen Ideas Festival is here. I am scheduled for a session, The American Wellness Paradox, currently scheduled from 11:00-11:50 a.m., at the East Lawn Tent. This will be a discussion with senior HHS policy advisor, Calley Means. Here’s the blurb on it: “Americans are spending more than ever on healthcare, supplements, wellness trends, and “clean eating,” yet rates of chronic disease and metabolic illness continue to climb. As skepticism fuels the rise of movements like MAHA, debates over what Americans should eat have become deeply cultural, political, and economic. Two influential voices with sharply different perspectives on nutrition and food science explore how food systems, farming practices, consumer culture, and the wellness industry collided to create one of the defining public health debates of our time.”
Industry-funding analysis of the week: the meat funding effect
This is an example of what the late and much missed Sheldon Krimsky called “the funding effect,” the strong tendency for industry-funded studies to produce results favorable to the commercial interests of the sponsor.
The study: Industry study sponsorship and conflicts of interest on the effect of unprocessed red meat on cardiovascular disease risk: a systematic review of clinical trials. Miguel López-Moreno, Ujué Fresán, Carlos Marchena-Giráldez, Gabriele Bertotti, Alberto Roldán-Ruiz. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ajcnut.2025.02.030.
The findings:
- Of 44 studies of meat and cardiovascular risks, 66% had links to the meat industry.
- All independently funded studies reported unfavorable (73.3%) or neutral (26.7%) results.
- All studies with funding ties to the meat industry reported favorable (20.7%) or neutral (79.3 %) results.
- Studies with conflicts of interest were nearly 4 times more likely to report favorable/neutral outcomes.
Conclusion:
- Studies funded by the meat industry “may underestimate the cardiovascular benefits of reducing red meat intake.”
Comment
This study confirms an enormous body of research on this topic: industry funding influences research outcome. How? Usually by influencing how the research question is framed or in how the results are interpreted (unfavorable results reported as neutral, for example). I’ve seen criticisms of this study arguing that ideology (favoring plant-based diets, for example) also influences research outcome. It does, but all investigators have belief systems that influence their work. These can go in any direction. That’s why research needs repeating by other investigators with other biases. Financial ties are different; they invariably skew results in the same direction—toward the commercial interests of the sponsor.
