Study finds evidence of bias in the review of artificially sweetened beverages
A systematic review of reviews of the effects of artificially sweetened beverages on weight found that review sponsorship and authors’ financial conflicts of interest may create bias affecting the outcomes. It has been suggested that the bias possibly undermines the quality and transparency of public health evaluations that are reliant on these reviews.
The systematic review compared the risk of bias, results and conclusions of reviews by different industry sponsors, authors’ financial conflict of interest and journal sponsor.
The main findings are:
- Reviews sponsored by the artificial sweetener industry were more likely to have favorable results than non-industry sponsored reviews
- Reviews performed by authors with a conflict of interest with the food industry were more likely to have favorable conclusions than reviews performed by authors without financial conflicts of interest.
- Reviews performed by authors with financial conflicts of interest also were more likely to report unclear results and to lack concordance between results and conclusions.
- Reviews published in journals funded partially or in full by the food industry more often have favorable conclusions than reviews published in non-industry funded journals.
- Reviews performed by artificial sweetener industry competitors were more likely to have unfavorable results and conclusions than artificial sweetener industry sponsored reviews and non-industry sponsored reviews.
These findings suggest that competitor funding should be considered as a source of bias in reviews of a product. To reduce bias, reviews of the effects of artificial sweeteners on weight need improvement in their search strategies, data collection and assessment of included studies. The bias introduced by financial interests could not be ascribed to the overall risk of bias of the reviews and was not prevented by the peer review process.
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