Skeptic Check: Not So Sweet

Big Picture Science

Obesity, diabetes, heart disease … maybe even Alzheimer’s. Could these modern scourges have a common denominator? Some people believe they do: sugar.

But is this accusation warranted? We talk with a journalist who has spent two decades reporting on nutrition science, and while he says there’s still not definitive proof that sugar makes us sick, he can make a strong case for it.

Also, how a half-century ago the sugar industry secretly paid Harvard scientists to shift the culprit for heart disease from their product to dietary fat. We hear how the companies borrowed from the playbook of Big Tobacco.

So is your sweet tooth a threat to your health?

Guests:

• Gary Taubes– Investigative reporter and the author of The Case Against Sugar.
• Cristin Kearns– Postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Francisco.
• Naomi Oreskes– Professor of the History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University, and the co-author of Merchants of Doubt.

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