The food industry has dirty tricks just like the tobacco firms, says Dr Aseem Malhotra

LAST week I delivered a lecture to 500 GPs and started off by telling them we have a complete health care failure consisting of misinformed doctors and misinformed and harmed patients.

L: Dr Aseem Malhotra R: Man holding cigarette packEVENING STANDARD/ GETTY

It took 50 years to correlate lung cancer and cigarettes

This is based on a number of factors including biased funding of research, biased reporting in medical journals, biased reporting in the media and commercial conflicts of interest.

The sad reality is that commercial interest - whether it relates to drug prescriptions or dietary advice - has resulted in a catastrophic public health crisis and the NHS on the brink of collapse.

It is clear that obesity and Type 2 diabetes are the biggest drivers of stress on the system and we are realising this is not a case of personal responsibility but flawed science combined with industries that continue to profit from giving out the wrong information, which harms our patients on a daily basis.

The science on sugar alone, which is now clearly incontrovertible as a cause of Type 2 diabetes, is not enough for us to reverse this problem rapidly.

It took 50 years from when the first links between tobacco and lung cancer were established before we saw any effective reduction in cigarette consumption through regulatory measures including taxing cigarettes, public smoking bans and banning advertising.

This has been responsible for the biggest reduction in deaths from heart disease in the past 30 years.

Dr Aseem Malhotra Now we are having to cope with a tsunami of diet-related disease, with sugar as public enemy number one.

The delay in regulation occurred because big tobacco adopted a dirty tricks playbook of denial, planting doubts, confusing the public, buying the loyalty of scientists and giving ammunition to political allies.

Diabetes: The difference between Type 1 and Type 2

It is very clear, as we point out in new research today, that the sugar lobby has adopted the same tactics, including co-opting respected organisations including the British Dietetic Association.

Those doctors campaigning for Government intervention to protect the public from the excesses and manipulation of the food industry have also been subject to attacks and smears from allies of those that continue to profit from a fat and sick society.

We need to all collectively take action if we are to reverse the epidemic of chronic disease that continues to cause millions to suffer on a daily basis.

The situation is now so dire that failure to act is not an option.

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