Edward - could you expand more on the different strains of E Coli, and the fact that the vast majority of commensals in the bowel are not enterotoxigenic?

Also - in the papers promoting effectiveness of commercial products, where any of those funded by the manufacturer?

an interesting conspiracy theory there Rory, and one that requires some fact checking. Thank you!
You final comments about 'diets for a lifetime' and the level of suger intake, are the most pertinent to the above article, and a logical extention.
cheers.

Mitch,

It's the fact that my fact-checking has been extensive that makes this Australian Paradox episode so disturbing.

In over six months, not one of the thousands of independent observers (excluding the authors, naturally) who have looked at this issue has seriously disputed my observation that the paper contains simple but major factual errors that invalidate its high-profile conclusion of "an inverse relationship" between sugar consumption and obesity (again, the basic facts are in Slides 9, 10 and 17).

Mitch, perhaps you'll try my $40,000 Australian Paradox Challenge to assure yourself that my facts are indeed facts: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/SydneyUniVC%20LETTER070612.pdf

So, yes, the paper is an academic disgrace and - more importantly - a menace to public health, as it has been used by the University of Sydney and food-industry entities in their campaigns to encourage Canberra to "stay soft" on sugar in its soon-to-be-refreshed national nutrition guidelines: http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/research-causes-stir-over-sugars-role-in-obesity-20120330-1w3e5.html

Awkwardly, the problem for Tim and others working in the nutrition space at Australian universities is that if the general public cannot have any confidence in nutritionists' "scientific record" - because no-one, not the authors, not their peers, is correcting even obviously bogus high-profile results - then sooner or later taxpayers will view local "nutrition science" as unreliable and choose to stop funding it.

After all, at this stage, we can learn a lot more about nutrition science - reliable nutrition science - simply by reading former The New York Times science writer Gary Taubes's book "Good Calories, Bad Calories" than by reading the entire output of Australia's nutrition academics, given that the deeply flawed Australian Paradox paper passes G8 quality controls and - as Dr Rosemary Stanton explained to me here a few months ago - low-quality papers with false conclusions are a dime a dozen in the local nutrition space.

What are we to do about the lack of serious quality controls in Australian nutrition science. I think a good start would be correcting or retracting bogus research results as they come to light, to help rebuild credibility in the space. Starting, perhaps, with the now-discredited paper I have highlighted.

Mitch, I got unmistakable confirmation that the authors of Australian Paradox had no real idea on their chosen special topic - sugar consumption in Australia - when they responded seriously to my critique of their dud paper with the made-up-false claim that motor vehicles not humans had been eating big chunks of the available sugar via fast-growing ethanol production.

The problem, of course - confirmed via a five-minute Google search - was that ethanol production in Australia does not use sugar as a foodstock - grains and molasses are used.

That is, the University of Sydney's finest nutrition scientists, under close scrutiny, rushed to add a fifth serious error to the four errors I already had highlighted.

Mitch, I am not making this up. It's all documented: http://www.smh.com.au/business/pesky-economist-wont-let-big-sugar-lie-20120725-22pru.html

Sue, I'm pretty sure you (still) don't "get it". After all, in a recent Conversation you were unable to tell me whether the steeply upward sloping line in a simple Australian Paradox chart (Figure 5A) in front of you sloped up or down (yes, it was up), so I'm not shocked that you also are struggling to get the point on your first reading in this Conversation.

On your question of relevance, I wrote above: "...the problem for Tim and others working in the nutrition space at Australian universities is that if the general public cannot have any confidence in nutritionists' "scientific record" - because no-one, not the authors, not their peers, is correcting even obviously bogus high-profile results - then sooner or later taxpayers will view local "nutrition science" as unreliable and choose to stop funding it".

So, I asked, "what should we [the general public] do about understanding the nature of a healthy diet - diets for a lifetime, or for "detoxing" temporarily - if Australia's highest-profile nutritionists can't be trusted to get simple facts right in "peer reviewed" published papers?"

Well, Sue, again, why should anyone have any confidence in a given statement on diet - diets for a lifetime, OR for "detoxing" temporarily - by any Australian nutritionist when the obviously false conclusion of the high-profile Australian Paradox paper - "an inverse relationship" between sugar consumption and obesity - has been embraced as correct without any serious dispute by Nutrition Australia, the Dietitians Association of Australia, the Australian Diabetes Council, and the Heart Foundation.

The embrace of the bogus Australian Paradox result raises questions about the competence of these entities to give reliable advice on anything.

Nor has Tim - our discussion leader - been prepared (so far) to state the obvious and confirm that his University of Sydney colleagues Dr Alan Barclay and Professor Jennie Brand-Miller should correct or retract their bogus Australian Paradox conclusion.

Sue, you claim that I "don't like the fact that the paper alleging there is an "Australian paradox" in sugar consumption hasn't been retracted". I'd settle for a simple correction by the authors of the basic facts that were misrepresented.

And, Sue, the paper didn't "allege" an Australian Paradox. It presented that always unlikely "inverse relationship" as scientific fact. Twice, despite overwhelming evidence in the authors' own charts contradicting their long-preferred conclusion.

The interesting question now, Sue, is whether the repeated formal misrepresentation of the available facts on added sugar in the development of obesity was the result of persistent negligence or basic scientific fraud? (Slides 8-10, 17 and 36-44 http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/AUSTRALIAN-PARADOX-101-SLIDESHOW.pdf ).

Mr Robertson, I may be more across this issue than you suspect.

In over thirty years of practising my profession, I;ve seen a lot of concepts enter and leave the scientific literature - as evidence accumulates over time.

Thirty years ago, "clot busting drugs" for heart attack were being trialled world-wide. They made a huge improvement in outcomes and became standard practise. Since then, there have been new regimes and new combinations of drugs used over time, with gradual improvements in overall mortality from heart attack. Hospitals that have the facilities have now moved along further to stenting coronary arteries. Does that mean that the initial thrombolysis data was "shonky"?

So, a key thing about scientific data is that it should be reproducible. In other words, if another research team in another place looks at the same question, they should come up with essentiallyt the same answer (if the first study is to be considered valid). The more supporting evidence accumulates form different studies, the more the initial idea will gain credence. It is uncommon for the world to change on the basis of a single study.

So, what about sugar consumption? As you say (repeatedly), the results from Barclay and Brand-Miller's paper were suprising. They did exactly as they should have done - they put their methodology and results in the public domain for all to critique (this is real peer review - when an informed community reviews the work).

Now, the study has been replicated. The Brisbane group Green Pool has re-analysed the data and essentially supported the initial results:
https://greenpoolcommodities.com/files/8113/4932/3223/121004_Sugar_Consumption_in_Australia_-_A_Statistical_Update_-_Public_Release_Document.pdf

Does this mean that the apparent paradox is proven? Well, in the scieitific sense, the evidence has been strengthened. If more studies replicate the same findings, it might become even more solid.

For those interested in a well-balanced approach to food and nutrition, there is an excellent essay on this topic here:
http://scepticalnutritionist.com.au/?p=514

No Sue. You are not. Your analytical skills and retention of facts are as acute as I had earlier assessed. As I've explained to you several times in recent months, my dispute with the University of Sydney is not at its core about science or nutrition, it's about very basic things like UP versus down, VALID versus invalid datasets, and the NEED to correct obvious errors and serious misrepresentations launched by ham-fisted scientists into important public debates.

Sorry to keep correcting you Sue, but I didn't say the Australian Paradox paper's results were "surprising", I said the main conclusion - "an inverse relationship" between sugar consumption and obesity - clearly is false.

And I wondered if the problem was simply persistent negligence or simple scientific fraud. Sue, you tell me, after looking carefully at the hard facts of this matter for the first time.

As I have explained to you patiently now for months - yet Sue you seem rather determined to resist the basic facts of the matter - Slides 8-10 and 17 demonstrate very clearly that the Australian Paradox paper is dominated by serious errors: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/AUSTRALIAN-PARADOX-101-SLIDESHOW.pdf

Sue, take your time and have a careful look. If you were objective I think you would agree that the now-discredited paper should be corrected or retracted.

Next, the Green Pool report. Yes, Sue, I didn't doubt that you like other silly sausages would embrace the sugar industry's "excellent" yet nonsense-based Green Pool report - explicitly paid for by the sugar industry - as a useful contribution to the debate. That's easy to do if you are not very good with numbers and charts and data and hard-nosed reality checks.

On the new Green Pool report, someone well-informed and somewhat sceptical - like you, Sue? - would ask the obvious question, something like: "How did a modest Brisbane firm succeed in the extraordinarily difficult task of counting all the added sugar scattered here, there and everywhere across Australia's food supply, a task so immense that even the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) with thousands of staff and a wealth of counting expertise failed badly, so badly in fact that it had to abandon its methodology as unreliable over a decade ago"?

The answer, of course, is that the new report did no such thing. In fact, the “new” information on Australian sugar consumption is deserving of ridicule, because the methodology used is complete nonsense. Sorry, but it is hard to be anything but scathing.

Let me take you through the cold hard facts, Sue. Like the factually incorrect "Australian Paradox" observation from the University of Sydney last year, this new Green Pool report is based on an “apparent consumption” of sugar series (4306.0) that was discontinued as unreliable by the ABS a decade ago.

In this new report, that same discredited sugar series now has been updated by applying the same broken methodology that the ABS abandoned as unreliable a decade ago. How’s that for patent nonsense?

Accordingly, the end result – the sugar industry’s Green Pool report - is worse than useless, a nonsense that misleads rather than informs the public debate. Is misleading the public debate with “updated” but still-bogus information just unreasonable or is it completely unacceptable?

In more detail, this sugar-consumption "update" is fundamentally flawed because it takes absolutely no account of the critical WHY behind the ABS discontinuing its unreliable sugar series after 1998-99, after some 60 years!

In fact, the ABS's sugar-counting methodology back then was in such disorder that the resulting sugar data could not - and should not - be relied upon for anything important. The puzzle here is that my website is cited by Green Pool (p.13) - and my discussions with the ABS about why it discontinued its apparent consumption of sugar series are detailed at #1 on the LHS of www.australianparadox.com (pp. 11-13) - yet the report simply ignores the basic and unavoidable problems faced by the ABS and/or anyone else seeking to count the added-sugar scattered throughout our food supply.

But don't take my word for it, Sue: the ABS itself provides an information line on the cover page of its discontinued "Apparent Consumption of Foodstuffs" dataset - "For further information about these and related statistics, contact Karen Connaughton on Canberra 02 6252 5337" - for the media and other analysts keen to understand the data issues that led the ABS to conclude that its sugar-counting methodology had - over the decades - become increasingly outdated, overwhelmed and unreliable.

Yes, Sue, the Green Pool report is worse than useless, because it misleads rather than informs. As with the University of Sydney's now-discredited Australian Paradox "study", we are left to ponder whether this new report - unacceptably based on a data series and a counting methodology both long ago discontinued as unreliable - reflects a serious problem with competence or a disturbing lack of respect for the public debate.

Either way, it is unreasonable to launch flawed and misleading information - in this case a reheated version of the ABS sugar series discontinued as unreliable by the ABS a decade ago, updated by applying the broken methodology abandoned by the ABS as unreliable a decade ago - into the critical debate on obesity and diabetes.

All this and more is discussed here: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/New-nonsense-based-sugarreport.pdf

Sue, I noticed your friends at the University of Sydney wasted no time in embracing the bogus new series being promoted by the sugar industry. Unconstrained by the usual desire to maintain intellectual credibility, Mr Bill Shrapnel, the Deputy Chairman of the University of Sydney’s Nutrition Research Foundation, recently claimed – with a straight face, maybe seriously but still erroneously – that “the publication of a new report has vindicated the [Australian Paradox] researchers”.

Ironically, that Foundation exists in part “to reliably inform the public about nutrition”. Sorry Sue, but Mr Shrapnel's self-serving story that the sugar industry’s bogus “new” data series wipes clean the serious factual errors driving the discredited Australian Paradox conclusion just won’t fly.

I’ve written “self-serving” because all that was missing from Bill’s blog was that nice photo of him standing around the table with Professor Brand-Miller – one of the authors of Australian Paradox – and all that tasty sugary food (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/a-spoonful-of-sugar-is-not-so-bad/story-e6frg8y6-1226090126776 ).

There’s a larger selection of the University of Sydney’s “healthy” low-GI-stamped sugary food products and drinks at p.10-11 at http://www.gisymbol.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/Glycemic-Index-Foundation-Healthy-Choices-Brochure.pdf ).

Sue, if professional scientists want to claim an important scientific observation – The Australian Paradox: “an inverse relationship” between sugar consumption (down) and obesity (up) - based on a single FAO sugar series, and contrary to the strong competing evidence – is it not somewhat negligent, incompetent, reckless and/or fraudulent of them not to have noticed – or deliberately not acknowledged? - that the ABS basis of that critical FAO series was discontinued as unreliable by the ABS a decade before the now-discredited Australian Paradox paper was published, a decade before that paper’s bogus conclusion was used to spearhead the University of Sydney’s and the food industry’s campaigns for the official nutrition guidelines to “stay soft” on sugar?

Sue, one hopes Canberra has seen through those ham-fisted campaigns. I suspect it has: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/university-sydney-falsely-declares-victory.pdf

In any case, Sue, I'm surprised you have been so keen over recent months to embrace this Australian Paradox shonkery, given that you claim to be interested in public health, in a good way. I assume your ties with the University of Sydney are long-standing?

By the way, Sue, was there any good reason why you failed to inform other readers in this Conversation that the Green Pool report was paid for by the sugar industry?

Maybe readers might also be interested to know that the sugar industry is one of the key revenue providers for the Australian Paradox authors' low-GI food-stamping enterprise?

If you are health-conscious, then perhaps check out the sugary food products that the University of Sydney for a fee endorses as "healthy", on page 10 of http://www.gisymbol.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/Glycemic-Index-Foundation-Healthy-Choices-Brochure.pdf

The University of Sydney's pricing structure is outlined here: http://www.foodhealthdialogue.gov.au/internet/foodandhealth/publishing.nsf/Content/D59B2C8391006638CA2578E600834BBD/$File/Resources%20and%20support%20for%20reformulation%20activities.pdf )

And here's Mr Bill Shrapnel and Professor Brand-Miller campaigning together for the Australian Government to "go easy" on sugar in its coming update of the national nutrition guidelines: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/a-spoonful-of-sugar-is-not-so-bad/story-e6frg8y6-1226090126776

That's despite growing scientific evidence that modern levels of consumption of added sugar are a serious health hazard, a key driver of global obesity and diabetes: http://www.google.com.au/search?q=is+sugar+toxic&hl=en-AU&gbv=2&gs_l=heirloom-hp.3...11421.18322.0.18677.23.20.0.0.0.0.501.3675.0j2j5j2j2j1.12.0...0.0...1c.1.f2hRQMeZl0c&oq=is+sugar+toxic

That's all very interesting. Does anyone have any thoughts about what might be going on here? I have no idea. Want to take a stab, Sue, or maybe try to draw me a clearer picture? (http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/university-sydney-falsely-declares-victory.pdf )

As as commenter on an opinion site, I "failed to inform other readers" ?

Are you serious? I linked to the actual report, which describes its funding source in the executive summary. It also descibes the methodology and lists the data, for all to see.

Mr Robertson, perhaps your obsession has affected your reasoning.

Yes, readers can dig up it, Sue, but it might have been better to be upfront on the sugar-industry sponsorship of your "objective" and insightful Green Pool report.

While we are at it, Sue, and I think I asked you something like this yesterday, do you have any links or history with the University of Sydney that may have influenced your enthusiasm in this Australian Paradox matter?

Back on your nonsense-based Green Pool report, Sue, what did you make of section "11. The Role of Fructose"?

Is it just me, or does that section read as though the authors think that fructose and sucrose are completely different things, as though the cane sugar (sucrose) we eat in Australia has nothing to do with fructose, even though the latter is 50% of the former!

Sue, were you surprised to learn that "Fructose is not produced in Australia..."? That's an awkward error. (If you can agree it is an error, Sue?)

I wonder if someone will tap the authors of this (commissioned) report on the shoulder and let them in on the “secret” that, in fact, fully 50% of the output – sugar - of the group paying for their rigorous analysis - “Australian sugarcane growers” - is fructose, and that a chunk of that domestic fructose now (unsurprisingly) sits inside those "products on the supermarket shelves", alongside the myriad imports also with sugar/fructose already added.

What are we to make of that section on "The Role of Fructose"? Sue, is it really as uncomprehending as it seems to me? Will the sugar industry ask Green Pool for its money back?

In any case, Section 7 in my piece discusses that ham-fisted analysis by your new favourite consulting firm: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/New-nonsense-based-sugarreport.pdf

And what about your fellow-traveller Mr Bill Shrapnel at the University of Sydney, Sue? As the Deputy Chairman of the University of Sydney’s Nutrition Research Foundation, how do you think he balances the University of Sydney's need to convey intellectual credibility in public against his need to maintain strong links with his food-industry contacts and customers?

In any case, Bill's recent false claim - echoed by you yesterday - that “the publication of a new report has vindicated the [Australian Paradox] researchers” certainly shot to the top of any recent lists keeping track of "Self-Serving Statements That Completely Lack Credibility": http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/university-sydney-falsely-declares-victory.pdf

Sue, any chance that their close association with sugary foods may be influencing the rigour of the analysis being pumped out by the senior nutritionists at the University of Sydney? (http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/a-spoonful-of-sugar-is-not-so-bad/story-e6frg8y6-1226090126776 and http://www.foodhealthdialogue.gov.au/internet/foodandhealth/publishing.nsf/Content/D59B2C8391006638CA2578E600834BBD/$File/Resources%20and%20support%20for%20reformulation%20activities.pdf )

My "enthusiasm in this Australian Paradox matter"?

Mr Robertson, I had never heard about the "Australian Paradox" until you started flooding this site with your opinion about it.

I am no fan of excess sugar consumption - nor excess consumption of any individual nutrient. Nor obsession about an individual piece of research.

And yet, Sue, you are a fan of promoting nonsense-based "research". You were happy to introduce to these pages the sugar industry's Green Pool report - and Mr Bill Shrapnel's embrace of the Green Pool report - as objective contributions to the Australian Paradox dispute, despite both pieces relying on a nonsense-based "update" - applying the ABS's broken and abandoned methodology - of a sugar series abandoned as unreliable by the ABS over a decade ago.

Yes, Sue, wise in the ways of science you promoted those self-serving pieces of nonsense as fine examples of scientific endeavour: http://www.australianparadox.com/pdf/university-sydney-falsely-declares-victory.pdf

Yet when shown that your chosen references are full of nonsense, you happily move on quickly, walking away without acknowledging the fact that pro-sugar factually flawed junkscience is being promoted by the University of Sydney's highest-profile nutritionists.

Sue, nor had I ever heard of Australian Paradox until one Saturday morning last year when I came across your friends at the University of Sydney campaigning against a modest toughening of official nutrition advice involving added sugar: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/a-spoonful-of-sugaris-not-so-bad/story-e6frg8y6-1226090126776

I thought that rather bizarre. Then it turned out that they had published a paper dominated by a series of serious errors, a paper cited globally by food-industry entities, a paper that also happens to be supportive of the pro-sugar low-GI enterprise they are operating:
p. 10 http://www.gisymbol.com/cmsAdmin/uploads/Glycemic-Index-Foundation-Healthy-Choices-Brochure.pdf

Then, despite that paper being dominated by a series of serious errors, your University of Sydney nutritionist friends published the same bogus conclusions again in Australian Paradox Revisited.

It's all rather fascinating don't you think? I thought scientists were not supposed to misrepresent the available data in formal journal articles. I know you are relaxed on that front, Sue, but I think the integrity of the scientific record is very important. In places where credibility matters, promoting bogus results as fact is not okay.

It's a pity that the University of Sydney's highest-profile nutritionists and their supporters from the Heart Foundation and other pro-sugar groups have chosen not to attend Monday's important debate in Parliament House, Canberra, on "The place of sugar in Australia’s Dietary Intake Guidelines".

Unfortunately, they seem to have run a mile from scrutiny of their strong public views on that matter: http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/health-science/a-spoonful-of-sugar-is-not-so-bad/story-e6frg8y6-1226090126776

Sue, if your high-profile nutritionist friends are indeed going to be no-shows in Canberra on Monday, they should make themselves useful and spend Monday correcting or retracting their now-discredited Australian Paradox paper.