2014-02-05

Now CASH are going after beer

Dear little green apples, it seems that our beer is too sugary:

Cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra said: ‘The levels of sugar in some of these drinks is quite staggering.
'There's nothing wrong with the occasional drink but unfortunately we are consuming much more than is good for us.' Dr Malhotra said alcohol-related ill health is costing the NHS £3.3 billion a year.
Nine teaspoons of sugar in a pint of real ale, apparently. Whoop de doo. That's about 36 grams, or two and a half tablespoons. And on the (unsourced) £3.3 billion, I note that alcohol duty is £10-11bn so it would seem to be more than covering its alleged costs.

Who is cardiologist Dr Aseem Malhotra? Oh look, he's listed as one of Action on Sugar's medical advisors:

Dr Aseem Malholtra, Cardiologist and Science Director of Action on Sugar
And yet, he doesn't publicise any academic connection unlike most of the Action on Sugar advisors. How curious. He's a HuffPost contributor who identifies as "Cardiologist and writer with a special interest in improving the nation's diet". A bit of digging indicates that he's a cardiology registrar at Croydon University Hospital. I'm sure he's a perfectly good registrar but, let's face it, CUH is not known as one of the great medical research establishments. Even his BMJ article is "Observations", not a research paper.

So CASH/Action on Sugar's science director seems to be a rather second-rank medic. Shallow calling unto shallow, I guess.

1 comment:

  1. http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/health/single-hit-of-heroin-contains-six-spoons-of-sugar-2014020583256?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailymash+%28The+Daily+Mash.+It%27s+news+to+us.%29

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