{"id":25984,"date":"2025-04-15T09:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-04-15T09:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25984"},"modified":"2025-04-15T09:26:19","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T09:26:19","slug":"a-scientist-is-paid-to-study-maple-syrup-hes-also-paid-to-promote-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=25984","title":{"rendered":"A Scientist Is Paid to Study Maple Syrup. He\u2019s Also Paid to Promote It."},"content":{"rendered":"
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For more than a decade, Navindra Seeram, a biomedical researcher, has praised maple syrup, calling it a \u201chero ingredient\u201d and \u201cchampion food\u201d that could have wide-ranging health benefits.<\/p>\n

Dr. Seeram, dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of New England, has published more than three dozen studies extolling the power of maple. Much of his work has been bankrolled by Canada\u2019s maple syrup industry and the Canadian and American governments.<\/p>\n

At the same time, he has taken on another role: maple syrup pitchman.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am uniquely qualified as the world\u2019s leading researcher on maple health benefits with the scientific reputation and credibility to promote the sales of maple products,\u201d he has written in grant applications. He has assured leaders of the Canadian industry that he would always support maple from Quebec, according to emails obtained through a public records request.<\/p>\n

As he straddles the realms of scientific inquiry and promotion, he has distorted the real-world implications of his findings and exaggerated health benefits, according to a review by The Examination and The New York Times of 15 years of his studies and public statements. In videos and press releases, he has suggested that consuming maple syrup may help stave off diseases including cancer, Alzheimer\u2019s and diabetes. Other scientists told The Examination and The Times that they thought he had overstated his lab findings and made misleading claims.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Industry funding is commonplace in nutrition research and may become even more critical as scientists grapple with the Trump administration\u2019s sweeping cuts. Dr. Seeram\u2019s work shows the perils of intertwining science and salesmanship, propelling information that can shape consumer habits and public health.<\/p>\n

At the University of Rhode Island, where he worked until last year, Dr. Seeram oversaw projects that were awarded $2.6 million in U.S. government funding, including a grant explicitly intended to increase maple syrup sales. That promotional work produced a stream of social media posts<\/a> like, \u201cMaple Syrup\u2019s Benefits: Anti-Cancer, Anti-Oxidant, Anti-Inflammatory.\u201d<\/p>\n

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For more than a decade, Navindra Seeram, a biomedical researcher, has praised maple syrup, calling it a \u201chero ingredient\u201d and \u201cchampion food\u201d that could have wide-ranging health benefits.Dr. Seeram, dean of the School of Pharmacy at the University of New England, has published more than three dozen studies extolling the power of maple. Much of his work has been bankrolled by Canada\u2019s maple syrup industry and the Canadian and American governments.At the same time, he has taken on another role: maple syrup pitchman.\u201cI am uniquely qualified as the world\u2019s leading researcher on maple health benefits with the scientific reputation and credibility to promote the sales of maple products,\u201d he has written in grant applications. He has assured leaders of the Canadian industry that he would always support maple from Quebec, according to emails obtained through a public records request.As he straddles the realms of scientific inquiry and promotion, he has distorted the real-world implications of his findings and exaggerated health benefits, according to a review by The Examination and The New York Times of 15 years of his studies and public statements. In videos and press releases, he has suggested that consuming maple syrup may help stave off diseases including cancer, Alzheimer\u2019s and diabetes. Other scientists told The Examination and The Times that they thought he had overstated his lab findings and made misleading claims.Industry funding is commonplace in nutrition research and may become even more critical as scientists grapple with the Trump administration\u2019s sweeping cuts. Dr. Seeram\u2019s work shows the perils of intertwining science and salesmanship, propelling information that can shape consumer habits and public health.At the University of Rhode Island, where he worked until last year, Dr. Seeram oversaw projects that were awarded $2.6 million in U.S. government funding, including a grant explicitly intended to increase maple syrup sales. That promotional work produced a stream of social media posts like, \u201cMaple Syrup\u2019s Benefits: Anti-Cancer, Anti-Oxidant, Anti-Inflammatory.\u201dWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25986,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25984"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25987,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25984\/revisions\/25987"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}