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"Overweight children with fatty liver disease sharply reduced the amount of fat and inflammation in their livers by cutting soft drinks, fruit juices and foods with added sugars from their diets, a rigorous new study found. The new research, published in JAMA, suggests that limiting sugary foods and drinks may be a promising lifestyle strategy to help alleviate a devastating condition linked to the obesity crisis that is spreading rapidly in adults and children. An estimated 80 million to 100 million Americans have nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, which causes the liver to swell with dangerous levels of fat. Roughly seven million of those are adolescents and teenagers."

This brief 2013 review summarizes two studies investigating the metabolic impact of fructose overconsumption, placing them in the broader context of the scientific literature. The authors note that “diets high in fructose could cause excess fat accumulation in the liver, leading to ... fatty liver disease, steatohepatitis and, ultimately, cirrhosis. Liver fat could also be released into the circulation and taken up by fat cells in other tissues, resulting in obesity. Furthermore, the circulating fat could accelerate the onset of cardiovascular disease, insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes. So fructose over-consumption may be at the heart of metabolic syndrome, which has also been linked to poor outcome of a wide range of cancers.”

Drs. Mary Dan and Michael Eades continue their series on the cardinal sins of scientific research, reviewing the bait-and-switch methods researchers often employ to earn or redirect attention. They discuss how statin manufacturers shifted their desired endpoints, turning their focus to cholesterol reduction (regardless of whether such reduction is shown to improve health) rather than the actual prevention of cardiovascular events in order to justify drug prescriptions. The technique of p-value hacking is also considered.

In this 2015 review, a team of leading diabetes researchers present 12 points supporting carbohydrate restriction as the first approach in the treatment and management of Type 2 diabetes. In addition to an analysis of carbohydrate restriction’s efficacy, the authors provide historical context for the rise of carbohydrate consumption in the American diet, noting that between 1971 and 2000, the observed increase in the average American’s caloric intake (6.8% in men, 21.7% in women) was almost entirely accounted for by an increase in carbohydrate consumption.