Looking for health advice? Dr. Coca-Cola will see you now

When the American Academy of Family Physicians announced it had received a substantial grant to enhance educational information about nutrition on its FamilyDoctor.org site, you’d think health experts would have been happy.

But the money was earmarked to focus on the role of beverages and sweeteners in a healthy diet. And it came from the world’s largest beverage maker, the Coca-Cola Co.

No, “happy” isn’t exactly the word to describe the way some health experts feel about this deal. “Distressed” and “disappointed” are more like it, according to a sharply worded letter sent Wednesday to Dr. Douglas E. Henley, the academy’s chief executive.

“We urge the AAFP to regain its credibility by rejecting the deal with Coca-Cola,” the letter stated. “If the AAFP declines to do that, we urge your organization to reassert its support for the public health (and its own independence) by supporting a warning label on caloric sugar-sweetened beverages and a federal tax on soft drinks to support health promotion or health insurance programs.”

The letter was signed by 22 doctors, nutritionists and health advocates, including obesity experts Dr. George Bray of Louisiana State University’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Dr. Matthew Gillman of Harvard Medical School, and Barry Popkin, director of the University of North Carolina's Interdisciplinary Obesity Center. It asks Henley to respond to Michael Jacobson, executive director of the advocacy group Center for Science in the Public Interest, a leading proponent of a soda tax.

The letter noted that soda is “the only food or beverage that has been demonstrated to promote overweight and obesity.” (Click here for an L.A. Times story on the scientific studies that support this claim.) But the signatories warned that the six-figure grant from Coca-Cola will prevent the doctors group from “criticizing sugar-sweetened beverages in the strongest language.”

In its own statement, Jacobson's group noted that Coca-Cola – which sells 1.6 billion servings of beverages each day – has a track record of partnering with health groups:

“In 2003, the American Academy of Pediatric Dentists took a $1 million payment from Coca-Cola. Before the payment, the dentists' group acknowledged the connection between sugary drinks and dental disease. But after the payment, the president of the AAPD told reporters that the ‘scientific evidence is certainly not clear’ on the role soft drinks play.”

American Family Physician, the academy's journal, published an article last year recommending that children and teens “consume no more than one serving of sweetened beverages (e.g., fruit juice, fruit drink, regular-calorie soft drink, sports drink, energy drink, sweetened or flavored milk, sweetened iced tea) per day.”

But today, FamilyDoctor.org advises parents of overweight children only to cut down on fast food and dessert. It makes no mention of soda or other sweetened drinks.

Henley told Food Navigator-USA.com that the academy was aware of the letter. But he stood by the partnership with Coke.

“We will move forward with this commitment together by providing educational materials on sweeteners and how to maintain a healthy, active lifestyle while still enjoying many of the foods and beverages consumers love,” he said in a statement.

Celeste Bottorff, Coca-Cola North America’s vice president of living well (yes, that’s actual her title), told FoodNavigatorUSA.com that the company has a long history of philanthropy that includes “many health organizations.”

-- Karen Kaplan

Photo: Would you trust health advice from the makers of this drink? Credit: Amy Sancetta / Associated Press

Comments

[Rajesh Sethi]

Coca-Cola's "buying" of the American Academy of Family Physicians' opinion is very unfortunate and as the story points out, it is not the first time either. In developing countries like India (where companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsico are eagerly looking to expand their markets), the companies are playing the same game. They are "buying" non-governmental organizations, getting on government committees that regulate food safety and Pepsi, for example, sponsors the Indian Dental Association.

[Stacey]

What if you aren't obese and like to drink soda? I watch my weight and don't eat fast food everyday, but I do like a soda every now and then! Don't hate on Coke-> it rocks!!!

[Stephen]

What happened to accepting PERSONAL responsibility for what YOU choose to eat, drink, and do. Is it convenient to say that the populace is mindless, easily influenced, and has complete lack of free choice. I don't think our forebearers would be impressed.

[moronk]

i love coke and drink maybe 10 a day - it doesn't make you fat - i hppen to be obese but that's just because i like to eat fruits and vegetables a lot.

[Evan]

Is Coca-Cola the new Tobacco?

[bobsnodgrass]

This is another example of the way that medical organizations ignore the needs of the population and deserve only contempt. The first Vioxx paper (Bombardier, et al, New England Journal of Medicine 343:1520-1528, 2000) reported that heart attacks (myocardial infarction) were four times more frequent in patients taking the new drug than those taking Naproxen. The summary reads “The incidence of myocardial infarction was lower among patients in the naproxen group than among those in the rofecoxib group (0.1 percent vs. 0.4 percent; relative risk, 0.2”. The authors blithely ascribed this difference to anti-platelet effects of naproxen. However, naproxen has much less such effect than aspirin as was well known. At that time, researchers were having trouble showing protective effects of aspirin against heart attacks in women, because it is a small effect. The American College of Cardiology, American College of Physicians and various other organizations of internists and cardiologists should have spoken up about this, warning doctors, who rarely bother to read these papers, of the risk. They kept quiet to their everlasting shame.

Coca Cola and other sodas are flavored and colored water. They contain chemical impurities that natural drinks, extracts of coffee beans, tea leaves or fruits, do not. If a coffee plant is exposed to chemical contaminants, such as are often found in chemicals from China, it withers and produces no beans- the fact that the drink is extracted from a living plant provides an important safety step that is missing in sodas. The companies don’t intentionally add contaminants; they use the cheapest chemicals that they can get.

All sodas, with or without added sugar, should be taxed. Diet colas are at least as harmful as those with added fructose syrup. This harm goes beyond obesity and includes hypertension and kidney disease, if you take enough soda and have the wrong genotype. So called energy drinks are more dangerous on a pound for pound basis than Coca-Cola. They should also be taxed.

[Isa]

This is such an outrage. This planet is being taken over by total idiocy & greed. The average Westerner has been so manipulated that they no longer know how to feed themselves: the average person is killing themselves slowly ingesting toxic foods laced with additives & colouring agents destined to make money for the the makers of such processed junk BUT, before they die, the medical industry will make money off of their obesity & all their related diseases. Thanks to sodas, diabetes is taking over the world......

Today's youth are the fattest & sickest generation this planet has ever seen.
Ask yourself this: if you are not slim & at your healthiest in your 20s, 30s & 40s, when do you think you are going to be slim & healthy, when you are 90? You will never make it beyond 40 if you do not reject being manipulated by the media & by unscrupulous producers of garbage. Any person who drinks 10 sodas a day (because they "taste good") is headed for cancer/MS/diabetes, the works. Look around and see how many 30 yr olds already have graying hair - this is an indication of a loss of minerals necessary for healthy living and of a very acid body.....it is shocking. This comes from ingesting sodas & junk foods...convenient prepackaged foods made of genetically modified substances....are you people thinking clearly?? REJECT this stuff & start eating to nourish yourselves.
STOP stuffing your faces and START nourishing your bodies by rejecting what "they" are selling. Start eating fruit and vegetables to nourish your bodies. Better yet, find out what eating raw food tastes like and feels like. You will regain your health and your figure but even more, you will regain your power instead of abdicating it to "them" . In addition you will save money eating more simply and not eating trash.

As for the American Academy of Family Physicians, they have already abdicated their power to the FDA and other corrupt organizations so is this any wonder?? In my eyes, the medical industry is totally dead.

Take charge of your health today - you have the power within you to be healthy or to become healthy - Do it now....don't wait until it is too late.

[Isa]

The BEST news I've heard in ages re junk food: Because Iceland has gone bust due to the financial crisis, the three MacDonalds in the island country have CLOSED!! This is wonderful news. Let us hope there will be a domino effect around the world with people everywhere waking up and realizing what such corn based, additive laced nothing to do with real food has been doing to their health.
Since 1976 when they saw a great opportunity, governments, the media and the medical & pharmaceutical industries have taken away our power hypnotizing us in to thinking only "they" can take care of our health once we have lost it and that we are powerless to get healthy & to stay that way.
While it is true that there are many more toxins floating in the air & in our water supply than 33 yrs ago (and who allows this abberation?), we can still TAKE CHARGE of our health.
I urge everyone who reads this to do so....YOU CAN DO IT!!!

[London Therapy]

I hare Coca Cola. It is not good for health.