What are latest developments in food industry?

Medical Research: How can I tell which studies have been funded or influenced by the food industry?

• One of the biggest problems with the public's understanding of nutrition, especially in the US, is that a lot of the research is funded by the food industry.  Even the organization that gives dietitians their Registered Dietitian credential (Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) is funded by Pepsi and General Foods, and these corporations provide "education" to dietitians and nutrition guidelines to the country. (Google "Dietitians for Professional Integrity" and "Nutrition Science Initiative" if you have any doubt about this, two groups that are concerned about these conflicts of interest, and are working to resolve them.  Or view the page on the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics website showing their sponsors: http://www.eatright.org/HealthProfessionals/content.aspx?id=7454&terms=sponsors ) I'm currently researching the connections between nutrition, metabolism, and endocrinology, and it seems as if I can't even rely on a search restricted to academic journals to eliminate the BS studies generated by the food industry. What is the most efficient way to weed out the BS?  I know that the food industry is expert at putting up smoke screens, but there must be some efficient ways to spot them.  Please help if you know how, thanks!

• Answer:

  Here's the thing... just because it's funded by the industry doesn't mean that it's biased. This is a problem in every research field: the people who fund it are the people who have a financial stake in it. If you want objective research, you'd need to have it funded by a completely disinterested party, such as the government... and let's just say that things get really murky there. Uncovering the funding isn't difficult. The journal article will publish conflicts of interest. And that's the really critical part here: you have to read the original journal article. Because as bad as the industry-created biases are, the biases caused by "science journalism" in favor of silver-bullet solutions, magical thinking, and attention-generating headlines are far worse. Diet and nutrition articles are especially prone to this, because people are always desperate for the magic berry or supplement or diet villain that will solve all of their problems. Which means that the real solution, in a lot of ways, is to ignore all of it. Despite the headlines, the real advice from dieticians hasn't changed in decades: more whole grains, vegetables, lean meats, and exercise; less crap. A lot of the rest is details. If you're looking at the journal article and wondering whether the fact that it was funded by the food industry means that it's wrong... actually, it isn't. The problem is that it's probably correct, but that it says far, far less than the press implies that it does. If you go back and read the original article you'll find that it's probably more or less objective despite the funding source, but that the claims are quite modest and heavily qualified. More often than not they're talking about biochemical metabolic matters far, far removed from any realistic applications. So, just to be sure I'm answering the question directly: you figure out where the original journal is and read the "affiliations" section. It's there to expose the possibility of conflict of interest. Sometimes people use sneaky ways to cover it up, but that's rarely the real problem. When it is, it usually requires considerable digging to uncover. But the real difficulty requires none of that obscuritanism. It just requires a willing press and a results-hungry readership to make a mountain out of a molehill.