#572: Can You Trust Industry-Funded Nutrition Studies? Here's How to Tell
Sigma Nutrition Radio
Danny Lennon
4.8 • 633 Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Nutrition science plays a pivotal role in shaping public health advice, but the influence of industry funding on research has become a pressing concern. In this episode we want to examine whether we can trust nutrition studies funded by food and beverage companies, and how you can discern study credibility.
The discussion is highly relevant in today's landscape, where conflicts of interest and bias in research are under scrutiny amidst debates on sugar, processed foods, and diet recommendations. By exploring how industry sponsorship might skew results or interpretations, this episode speaks to broader issues of scientific trustworthiness and evidence-based policy in nutrition and public health.
In this episode, we take a look at some recent publications that showed how study results and reporting differed significantly depending on if industry had funded the study or not. We delve into how this happens. As most often it is not a case of data fabrication or corruption, but rather how bias leads to studies being designed and reported differently.
We walk through some examples, as well as highlighting some industry-funded studies that didn't provide a "pro-industry" result and conclusion.
The hope is that the episode allows you to understand why this is a problem, how to spot it, and how to know if you can trust the results of an industry-funded study.
Timestamps
- [00:36] Alan's upcoming study
- [04:47] Discussion on industry funding in nutrition research
- [15:06] Case study: industry influence on red meat research
- [30:43] Case study: artificial sweeteners and industry influence
- [36:37] Case study: sugar industry's role in research
- [38:06] Critical appraisal of industry-funded studies
- [51:58] Case study: when industry-funded study results can be trusted
- [01:01:51] Guidelines for assessing research quality
- [01:07:14] Key ideas segment (premium-only)
Related Resources
- Join the Sigma email newsletter for free
- Subscribe to Sigma Nutrition Premium
- Join Alan's Alinea Nutrition Research Hub
- Enroll in the next cohort of our Applied Nutrition Literacy course
- Recommended episode: #472: Compared To What? – Understanding Food Substitution Analysis & Adjustment Models
- Studies mentioned:
- López-Moreno et al., Am J Clin Nutr. 2025 Jun;121(6):1246-1257
- Tobias, 2025 – You are what you don't eat
- Mandrioli D, Kearns CE, Bero LA (2016) PLOS ONE 15(3): e0230469
- Schillinger et al., Ann Intern Med. 2016 Nov 1;165(12):895–897
- Schmidt et al., 2021 – The impact of diets rich in low-fat or\ full-fat dairy on glucose tolerance and its determinants: a randomized controlled trial
- Schmidt et al., 2021 – Impact of low-fat and full-fat dairy foods on fasting lipid profile and blood pressure: exploratory endpoints of a randomized controlled trial
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, before we get into the podcast, just a quick reminder that if you want to get detailed study notes to this, as well as previous episodes of this podcast, as well as a transcript and premium exclusive episodes every month, you can be a Sigma Nutrition Premium subscriber. |
| 0:14.5 | All the details are linked in the description box where you're currently listening right now, or I'll mention some more details at the end. |
| 0:20.2 | But for now, let's dive into our episode. |
| 0:35.9 | Hello and welcome to another episode of Sigma Nutrition Radio. My name is Danny Lennon, |
| 0:40.4 | and with me is Dr. Alan Flanagan. Alan, how are you doing? I'm very well, thanks. We have received |
| 0:45.3 | approval for a new study, so it'll be all systems go on that front in a couple of weeks. |
| 0:50.8 | And this is the beneficial metabolic responses we see in response to breakfast. |
| 0:56.0 | Are they explained only by the biological time the meal occurs? |
| 1:00.0 | It's the first meal we eat early in the day. |
| 1:03.0 | We're diurnal mammals. |
| 1:04.0 | We have this better glucose tolerance and stuff like that that's oriented towards the day, |
| 1:09.0 | or does the early part of the day or does the fasting |
| 1:12.0 | duration overnight before that meal actually have an influence on the reason that there is that |
| 1:18.0 | response and so yeah looking forward to getting this up and running and seeing what we find and |
| 1:24.5 | for the curious people that have just heard that introduction, what is some of the |
| 1:28.9 | way that the study will actually run? What will that look like in practice for both you and the participants? |
| 1:34.2 | Yeah. So the design is a crossover intervention. So participants will be randomized to the order of |
| 1:43.2 | the intervention. They'll be in our lab for nine days, nine nights, go out for two weeks, come back in for a further nine days, nine nights. |
| 1:51.0 | And what we're doing is a protocol where we are feeding two meals a day, the first of which in both conditions is at the same time. |
| 1:59.0 | So clock time of say 8 a.m. And then the second |
| 2:03.4 | meal either occurs nine and a half hours after that first meal or 15 and a half hours after |
| 2:09.7 | that first meal. And that means then that the corresponding overnight fast is the opposite |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Danny Lennon, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Danny Lennon and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.