A DIETITIAN has been called on to stand down from the board of Food Standards Scotland after it emerged she once wrote a paper downplaying a link between sugar and obesity.

Dr Carrie Ruxton also claimed that studies found a “tentative, although often inconsistent” association between sugary drinks and being overweight.

Her research was aided by a grant from The Sugar Bureau, which was the official voice of the industry and Ruxton’s former employer.

Set up in 2015, FSS is a non-ministerial Government department for food safety, standards and nutrition.

However, the Sunday Herald revealed last week that FSS founding board member Ruxton, who has a PhD in child nutrition, is at the centre of a conflict of interest row.

The former Scottish Tory candidate declares paid work for Ferrero, one of the biggest chocolate makers in the world.

In 2010, five years before she took up her position at FSS, she co-wrote a paper entitled 'Is Sugar consumption detrimental to health? A review of the evidence 1995 - 2006'.

At the time her findings were published, Ruxton was a member of the Scottish Food Advisory Committee (SFAC), which eventually made way for the FSS.

In the final section of the report, Ruxton reported that “even when intakes of sugar were pushed to extremes, there were few apparent disadvantages for body weight and metabolic syndrome”.

She added: “In the case of obesity, the evidence did not reveal a positive relationship with sugar; indeed some studies showed an inverse relationship. Weight management interventions suggested that the rate of weight loss was unaffected by the addition of sugar.”

The UK Government last year announced plans for a levy on soft drinks and FSS has called on Ministers to consider a wider sugar tax.

Asked last week if she supported a sugar tax, Ruxton said she backed the UK Government levy policy.

Professor Simon Capewell, a Professor of Public Health and Policy at Liverpool University, said of the report and Ruxton’s existing links: “There would seem to be a major conflict of interest here and her position is untenable.”

Joanna Blythman, an award-winning investigative food journalist and author, said: “It is simply unacceptable that someone who has co-authored a review of scientific data, funded by the sugar industry, one that unsuccessfully attempted to downplay the very real damage that sugar does to public health, should be accepted as a board member at FSS, the public body charged with dispensing nutrition advice to the public.”

FSS chair Ross Finnie said that Ruxton was not a FSS board member when her paper was published and that she was present when the board unanimously adopted a diet and obesity strategy which included measures to reduce sugar intake.