Search results: Coca Cola

Since it’s Monday when I post industry-funded studies anyway, I will add one more of these to last week’s collection.

This one comes from an articles in The Conversation: Big companies, like Nestlé, are funding health research in South Africa – why this is wrong.

At the time a group of more than 200 senior academics wrote an open letter, about conflicts of interest. Nestlé’s portfolio of foods, by its own admission, includes more than 60% that don’t meet the definition of healthy products.

In December last year, the same centre announced it had signed a memorandum of understanding with Nestlé. It signalled their intent to “forge a transformative partnership” to shape “the future of food and nutrition research and education” and transform “Africa’s food systems”.

I saw this posted on X (the site formerl known as Twtter, which I still find to be a useful source of information I would not otherwise know about).

Terrible news. @PepsiIndia @CocaColaCo @Unilever @KelloggsUS
Sponsor the Annual Conference of Nutrition Society of India . What a shame and conflicts of interest! @ICMRNIN @ICMRDELHI @mygovindia @TimothyWSchwab please note Gates Foundation. @RemaNagarajan @chetanecostani pic.twitter.com/iSRhaUVNOb

— Dr Arun Gupta MD FIAP (@Moveribfan) November 25, 2023

I also saw a post from Joes Spicer, head of Nutrition International, announcing its withdrawal of funding for the conference  because of the food industry sponsors.

And then Tim Schwab, whose book, “The Bill Gates Problem,” I cannot wait to get to, sent this:

In India last week, a minor furor erupted over the Nutrition Society of India’s annual conference being so brazenly sponsored by companies like Coca-Cola.  But Coke is only a “gold” sponsor.  The “platinum” sponsor? The Gates Foundation.

For two decades, Gates has partnered closely with corporate interests—from Coca-Cola to Pfizer—and presented them to the world as humanitarian partners. Because the foundation is such an admired and celebrated charitable body, Gates has had a powerful effect on normalizing, institutionalizing and legitimizing corporate partnerships and conflicts of interest throughout science and policy making.

Food and drug companies love to sponsor nutrition conferences.  What better way to convince influential professional researchers and teachers that your products are good for health and nothing should be said about restricting or regulating them.

The role of the Gates Foundation is much less obvious and much more important because of its money and interntional power.  Schwab’s book promises to address such matters.  I will have more to say about it when I’ve had a chance to read it.

In the meantime, nutriton societies oin the U.S. and India too would be more credible if they avoided taking food industry sponsorship.  If they take Gates Foundation money, it had best come with no strings and no implied endorsements.

If F0undatios were really altruistic, they would provide donations anonymously and not expect a quid pro quo.  When they expect a quid pro quo, it’s best to find out exactly what it is.

I can hardly believe this, and had to laugh when I read all the articles last week about how worried the food industry is about the new obesity drugs.

Imagine: if the drugs really do reduce appetite and interest in food—horror of horrors—people might eat less.

Eating less, as I have pointed out repeatedly, is very bad for the food business.

In Food Politics, I explained how the fundamental purpose of  food companies is to get you to eat more food, not less.

Beginning in the early 1980s, food companies did a better job of creating an “eat more” food environment.

People responded to this environment by eating more calories—lots more—and way more than enough to account for the rising prevalence of overweight and obesity.  Evidence?   See my book with Mal Nesheim, Why Calories Count: From Science to Politics.

When I am at my most cynical, I ask this question: What industry might benefit if people ate more healthfully?

I am hard pressed to think of any—certainly not the food, diet, or diet-drug industries (Novo Nordisk, maker of the semaglutide drug, Wegovy, now makes more than the gross domestic product of Denmark).

The only exception I can think of is not-for-profit HMO’s like Kaiser Permanente, which do better if their patients are healthier (and have no excuse for not paying their workers better).

Anything that helps people eat less and more healthfully is bad news for the food industry, and especially for companies making ultra-processed junk food.

No wonder companies are worried.

Here’s my collection from last week (with thanks to Lisa Young and Michele Simon for making sure I saw these articles):

• Wall Street Journal: America’s Food Giants Confront the Ozempic Era
• Yahoo Finance: Ozempic Is Making People Buy Less Food, Walmart Says
• Bloomberg News: If Ozempic Leads People to Eat Less, Maker of Cheez-It Will Be Ready
• Yahoo Finance: Snack-maker Conagra may tweak portions as weight-loss drugs alter appetites
• Washington Post:  Food, clothing, airlines: Ozempic is coming for these industries and more
• Yahoo Finance: Surge in obesity drugs like Ozempic has pummeled big food stocks. Is it time to eat them up?
• Food Fix:  Why Ozempic makes Wall Street woozy
• PepsiCo: PepsiCo monitoring impact of weight loss drugs, but says early impact on sales is ‘negligible’

The Examination, a brand-new news outlet, and the Washington Post jointly published a jaw-dropping article last week about dietitians paid by food and supplement companies to defend and promote their products on Instagram and TikTok.

Why jaw-dropping?  Two reasons: the media—videos, posts—embedded in the article (these are amazing to see), and the non-disclosure of payment.

As the World Health Organization raised questions this summer about the risks of a popular artificial sweetener, a new hashtag began spreading on the social media accounts of health professionals: #safetyofaspartame….What these dietitians didn’t make clear was that they were paid to post the videos by American Beverage, a trade and lobbying group representing Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and other companies….The food, beverage, and dietary supplement industries are paying dozens of registered dietitians that collectively have millions of social media followers to help sell products and deliver industry-friendly messages on Instagram and TikTok, according to an analysis by The Examination and The Washington Post.

Here’s just one example:

Registered dietitian Lindsay Pleskot, of Vancouver, British Columbia, has posted videos of herself eating ice cream and peanut butter cups while telling people that denying themselves sugary food will only make cravings worse….These and other posts were paid for by the Canadian Sugar Institute.

Now that Barbie is a feminist icon, I have to confess I have two of them in my NYU office.

At one point I must have owned three, because here is an illustration from my book, Food Politics, published in 2002.

The feet on the MacDonald’s Barbie are flat—she’s wearing sneakers, appropriately for a doll on her feet all day.

The Oreo purse is a nice touch.

I don’t know what happened to my Coca-Cola Barbie but the other two are still in their boxes.

Who knew?

One of the most viewed articles in The Guardian last week was this one on possible conflicts of interest among WHO panelists dealing with the health effects of the artificial sweetener, aspartame.

The headline: Revealed: WHO aspartame safety panel linked to alleged Coca-Cola front group

The article refers to the release last month of two somewhat contradictory reports on the potential carcinogenicity of the artificial sweetener, aspartame, a situation I referred to in this space as crazy-making.

To review:

• The WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified aspartame as possibly carcinogenic to humans.
• But in the same report, the WHO and FAO Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) said a daily aspartame intake of 40 mg/kg body weight was acceptable.

A  report from US Right to Know poses a possible explanation: “Did a Coca-Cola front group sway a WHO review of aspartame?”

One possible answer: at least six out of 13 JECFA panel members have ties to ILSI, a longtime Coca-Cola front group. [In addition] Both the chair and vice chair of the JECFA panel have ties to ILSI.

I’ve written repeatedly about ILSI actions on behalf of the food industry, most recently about how it tracked responses to my book Unsavory Truth (in which I discuss the organization as a front group).

Just because committee members have affiliations with an industry front group does not mean they cannot be objective about the science of aspartame, and I have certainly heard arguments that anyone who has any stature in nutrition cannot avoid such ties (full disclosure: in the late 1980s, ILSI attempted—unsuccessfully, no surprise—to recruit me for a job).

But it is striking that 8 of 13 members had such an affiliation, a (perhaps) coincidence that got The Guardian’s attention.

At the very least, the membership gives the appearance of a conflict of interest, which is one reason why such things matter.

I was deluged with interview requests last week over the rumor that the World Health Organization will soon release reports stating that the artificial sweetener aspartame is “possibly” carcinogenic.

I say rumor, because the reports will not be released until July 14.

According to Reuters—Exclusive: WHO’s cancer research agency to say aspartame sweetener a possible carcinogen -sources—two sources leaked the conclusion.

Aspartame, used in products from Coca-Cola diet sodas to Mars’ Extra chewing gum and some Snapple drinks, will be listed in July as “possibly carcinogenic to humans” for the first time by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the World Health Organization’s (WHO) cancer research arm, the sources told Reuters…. Last month, the WHO published guidelines advising consumers not to use non-sugar sweeteners for weight control. The guidelines caused a furore in the food industry, which argues they can be helpful for consumers wanting to reduce the amount of sugar in their diet.

From what I hear from my own sources, everyone involved in the forthcoming reports is bound by confidentiality agreements.  They suspect that food industry representatives did the leaking.

This gives the industry plenty of time to complain and lobby.  As one report has it, “Industry experts and trade groups are decrying the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer’s pending addition of aspartame to a list of possible carcinogens for humans as unscientific and politically motivated.”

Aspartame has been under scrutiny for its potential harm to health practically from the time it first appeared. (see Laura Reiley in the Washington Post on how aspartame has come under scrutiny lately).

Center for Science in the Public Interest has long said of aspartame, Avoid.

Aspartame (sometimes marketed under the brand names Equal, NutraSweet, or AminoSweet) is a chemical combination of two amino acids and methanol. Questions of cancer and neurological problems, such as dizziness or hallucinations, have swirled around aspartame for decades…In 2005, researchers at the Ramazzini Foundation in Bologna, Italy…found that rats exposed to aspartame starting at eight weeks of age and continuing through their entire lifetimes developed lymphomas, leukemias, and other tumors, including kidney tumors, which are extremely rare in the strain of rat used. In 2007, the same researchers published a follow-up study that exposed rats to aspartame beginning in the womb and continuing through their entire lifetimes. That study, too, found that aspartame caused leukemias/lymphomas, as well as mammary (breast) cancer. Then in 2010, they published a study that exposed mice to aspartame, starting in the womb and continuing throughout their entire lifetimes. That third study found that aspartame caused liver and lung cancer in male mice.

US Right to Know says of Aspartame, “Decades of Science Point to Serious Health Risks.”

But the FDA says “aspartame is safe for the general population when made under good manufacturing practices and used under the approved conditions of use.”

And the American Cancer Society says you would have to drink 36 cans of diet soda a day to excede the Acceptable Daily Intake level.

Rumors and concerns about aspartame causing a number of health problems, including cancer, have been around for many years. Some of the concerns about cancer stem from the results of studies in rats published by a group of Italian researchers, which suggested aspartame might increase the risk of some blood-related cancers (leukemias and lymphomas). However, later reviews of the data from these studies have called these results into question. The results of epidemiologic studies (studies of groups of people) of possible links between aspartame and cancer (including blood-related cancers) have not been consistent.

A recent review says “The consumption of ASBs [artifically sweetened beverages] was associated with a higher risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes, all-cause mortality, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease incidence.”

As I mentioned a month or so ago, artificial sweeteners are taking a big hit these days and it looks like they are about to take another one.

In my intereviews, I pointed out that what’s news here is the level of authority.  It’s a big deal that WHO is saying this.

Two other points.

• Aspartame is not essential in the diet.  Nobody (except soft drink companies) need it.
• It and other artificial sweeteners are artificial and, therefore, ultra-processed.
• I’m already seeing “no aspartame” labels on soft drinks and food products.

I am looking forward to seeing the data when the reports are published.

The American Beverage Association, which represents Big (and also Medium) Soda, is now advertising in Politico.

America’s leading beverage companies – The Coca-Cola Company, Keurig Dr Pepper and PepsiCo – are bringing consumers more choices with less sugar. From sparkling, flavored and bottled waters to zero sugar sodas, sports drinks, juices and teas, consumers have more options than ever. In fact, nearly 60% of beverages sold today have zero sugar. Americans are looking for more choices to support their efforts to find balance, and America’s beverage companies are delivering. Explore choices at BalanceUS.org.