I Fact Check a Fact Check on RFK Jr.
Part 4: Ultra-Processed Food
For four weeks, a group of female mice with melanoma was given a solution of 20% high fructose corn syrup and 80% water to drink. Another group of female mice with melanoma was given just water. Researchers repeated the same experiment on mice with breast cancer and then on mice with cervical cancer. Keep reading to find out what happened.
Welcome to Part 4 of my fact check of a fact check by BBC Verify on Robert F Kennedy Jr's views on health policy. This section of the article deals with ultra-processed food, on which he has partially blamed the US health epidemic.
The following photos, from DoSomething.org, depict cafeteria lunches in US schools.
BBC Verify acknowledges the link between diet and cancer but states there is no clear evidence that ultra-processed foods are a cause. They then quote two experts who tell us the same.
Now, I didn’t go to journalism school. But it would seem to me that before typing "there's no evidence that ____," you ought to first actually try to find that evidence. It appears that the journalists, however, simply skipped that step.
When I searched, it took me less than thirty seconds to find the study above. It was published in December in Nature.
In the following graphs, the orange lines represent the mice1 given the solution of water plus high-fructose corn syrup. The gray lines represent the mice given water. The horizontal axis is time, while the vertical axis is the size of the cancer tumors.
As you can see, the tumors grew much faster in the mice given high fructose corn syrup. Most ultra-processed foods, not whole foods, contain high fructose corn syrup.
Stay tuned for the final installment of this series: Kennedy's views on Covid.
References
Fowle-Grider, R., Rowles, J.L., Shen, I. et al. Dietary fructose enhances tumour growth indirectly via interorgan lipid transfer. Nature 636, 737–744 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08258-3
Poor mice. They were deliberately given cancer for the study. Where would humans be without the sacrifices of animals?
Moorea - I look forward to your fact checks of fact checks, and save them for a time when I can sit and take them in. I'm learning a lot, not the least of which is to verify most of what journalists or "experts" claim. It's an important message.
Holy $@#!. Did the effing B.B.C. really print "there’s no clear evidence" that "many pervasive health problems, including cancers, obesity and depression" are "caused" by "ultra-processed foods"?
Yes. It did. See https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0mzk2y41zvo
As Moorea hints, this is indeed journalistic malpractice, of perhaps the worst order, in detriment to the public health. And, it is particularly cynical given that the U.K. government is starting to ban "junk food" TV ads in a similar fashion to the long-standing U.S. ban of TV cigarette ads. See https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cx2n2g5wze4o