[Skip to Navigation]
Viewpoint
January 2016

Corporate Funding of Food and Nutrition Research: Science or Marketing?

Author Affiliations
  • 1Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, New York University, New York
JAMA Intern Med. 2016;176(1):13-14. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2015.6667

The longstanding influence of food industry funding on nutrition research, researchers, and professional societies1 threatens the credibility of nutrition science. So much research is sponsored by industry that health professionals and the public may lose confidence in basic dietary advice. Although most journals now require authors to disclose who pays for their work, disclosure—even done diligently—is not sufficient to alert readers to the extent to which industry funding influences research results and professional opinion. As is well established from experimental and observational research, drug company gifts and grants can have substantial effects. To recipients, however, these effects are almost always unconscious, unintentional, and unrecognized, making them especially difficult to prevent.2

Add or change institution
×