Food companies funded these 8 studies to prove their products are 'healthy'

Hollis Johnson

You're not supposed to believe everything you read, but tack the word "science" to something and many people will take it as fact — no questions asked.

This is why big food companies have percolated into the world of nutrition science. If food marketers can "uncover" a health benefit to consuming a company's products, then those products will sell better. That's not "science," it's reality.

A 2015 report pulled back the curtain on the close relationships between nutrition scientists and food companies. It found that the American Society for Nutrition accepts sweet sums of cash to produce research that falls in the favor of big food companies. The ASN allows companies like PepsiCo, Nestlé, Coca-Cola and McDonald's to sponsor events and supply researchers from their own boards to see through scientific research.

To put it timidly, these partnerships amount to serious conflicts of interest. The food brands get what they want (their products sold), scientists get what they're after (funding to perform research) and the public is left with misinformation. This is only further fueled by hyperbolic news headlines — like the findings outlined in the list below.

Read on to unwrap just a few real scientific studies that have been manipulated by big food companies in ways that are sometimes hidden so deeply, they're not even in the study's footnotes.

Finding #1: Drinking cranberry juice will cure a UTI.

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For years, people have been told that sitting in a cranberry bog could reduce the agony felt from a urinary tract infection. (OK, maybe not a bog, per se.) But it turns out that all the cash shelled out for cranberry juice is for absolutely nothing.

A recent study published in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that a glass of cranberry juice a day reduced UTI symptoms by close to 40% in women. Ocean Spray, the biggest cranberry juice producer on the planet, funded this study.

To add insult to injury, real Ocean Spray staff scientists co-authored the research, Vox reported. "Not only was the food company involved in nearly every step of the process but its scientists even helped write the manuscript."

This information was not included in the study's press release, Vox said.

Even worse, the science in the Ocean Spray-funded study is all wrong. Real cranberries contain an active ingredient called proanthocyanidins. PACs can keep bacteria from binding to the walls of the bladder, they don't show up in most commercial cranberry juices.

"It takes an extremely large concentration of cranberry to prevent bacterial adhesion," Dr. Timothy Boone, of Texas A&M Health Science Center said in a statement. "This amount of concentration is not found in the juices we drink. There's a possibility it was stronger back in our grandparents' day, but definitely not in modern times."

The Ocean Spray masterminds were able to fudge their study by analyzing "symptoms" rather than infections. In other words, the study participants didn't even need to have a UTI to show signs of an improved UTI.

Vox explained it best:

"Imagine you give cranberry juice to 10 women, and another 10 women act as the control group and get sugar water. Let's say everyone in the sugar water group gets a UTI and no one in the cranberry group does. That would mean you prevent 10 women getting 10 events — and that the cranberry juice is a very effective treatment."

Finding #2: Diet soda is better than water for weight loss.

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A study published in the International Journal of Obesity suggested that diet soda could promote weight loss better than than water, the hydrating liquid that comes naturally from the planet and makes up around 60% of the human body.

The study was backed and funded by the International Life Sciences Institute, whose members include both Coca-Cola and PepsiCo. Even worse, some of the study's co-authors were paid the equivalent of $1,100, the Independent reported.

While more than 5,500 papers were reviewed, the findings were based off a mere three. And of those three, only one of the papers showed any significant weight loss. When scientists are paid by brands, and when funding isn't initially disclosed — which in this study, it was not — the results reek of being rigged.

"To suggest that diet drinks are more healthy that drinking water is laughable unscientific nonsense," cardiologist Aseem Malhotra told the Independent. "If you want good science you cannot allow corporate sponsorship of research."

Finding #3: Kids who eat candy tend to weigh less.

Flickr/luschei

It would be cute if a fourth grader wrote this study to convince their parents to permit extra Snickers from their Halloween bag.

Instead, it's written by sticky-fingered adults who work for the National Confectioners Association, a trade group that represents candy manufacturers. In this case, the Associated Press uncovered an email written by a co-author of the study that pretty much stated that the results were calculated for the benefit of a company. "We're hoping they can do something with it — it's thin and clearly padded," the email stated, with the study abstract attached.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider