Ancel Keys, Ph.D. Was Right (and Nina Teicholz was Wrong): We Eat Too Much Sugar and Saturated Fat

The headlines are buzzing with new data from France that added dietary sugar in juice and soda are associated with an increased risk of cancer. A prior report last month reported a strong relationship of added sugar and mortality. It is a bad month to be in the sugar business (notably this is not referring to whole fruit).

Is this new data or did a famous professor decades ago warn us about excess sugar intake? Indeed, the famous Ancel Keys, Ph.D. warned us of our excesses long ago.

Do you know of the amazing career of Ancel Keys, Ph.D? If you want the long story, I have previously written about the his scientific contributions and the controversy that certain authors and bloggers raised after his death in 2004. If you would like an ever longer scientific analysis of his career, there is a 64-page White Paper to review. The short story is that among his many research projects, over the course of several decades, several projects, and many esteemed co-investigators, his team identified dietary saturated fat as an important cause of the number 1 killer in the Western world, coronary heart disease. In my prior writing I reported that “ If one references his Wikipedia entry of 2017, a journalist Nina Teicholz is featured commenting that if “strong personalities steer events using their own personal charisma, in the history of nutrition Ancel Keys was, by far, the Greatest Man”. She would have us believe that it was his…