For more than a decade, Navindra Seeram, a biomedical researcher, has praised maple syrup, calling it a “hero ingredient” and “champion food” 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’s maple syrup industry and the Canadian and American governments.
At the same time, he has taken on another role: maple syrup pitchman.
“I am uniquely qualified as the world’s leading researcher on maple health benefits with the scientific reputation and credibility to promote the sales of maple products,” 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’s 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’s sweeping cuts. Dr. Seeram’s 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, “Maple Syrup’s Benefits: Anti-Cancer, Anti-Oxidant, Anti-Inflammatory.”
In a video posted on YouTube in 2019, Dr. Seeram said nutrients in maple syrup could “potentially together prevent and/or delay the onset” of conditions such as “cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, diseases of the brain and so on.”
But his studies have found something more limited: that maple syrup contains small amounts of polyphenols, compounds in plants that are generally considered beneficial. To demonstrate their effects, he tested highly concentrated maple extracts in lab settings — not people’s consumption of commercial maple syrup.
Dr. Seeram told The Examination that he believed in the power of natural medicines, which were part of his upbringing in South America. And he defended how he had spoken about his findings: “No one can go back to direct-quote from me to say, ‘It’s going to cure cancer, it’s going to cure diabetes.’”
His conclusions often include hedging language — that maple syrup “may” or “could” have meaningful health effects — or disclaimers recommending further study. But several researchers said that the caveats weren’t enough to counterbalance broad health claims, and that Dr. Seeram had leaped too far from lab findings to practical applications.
“They are framing it in a far more positive light than they should,” said Christopher Gardner, a nutrition researcher at Stanford.
In an interview, Dr. Seeram blamed a former colleague at the University of Rhode Island for stirring up what he said was unwarranted scrutiny of his work. A university official said the school had investigated and found no research misconduct.
At a maple industry conference in October, Dr. Seeram described his work as making “it simple for Mom to understand” that syrup is beneficial.
“We have to convince the consumer that this sugar is good for you,” he told an audience of maple farmers, and laid out how to reach the public: Studies like his would be published in peer-reviewed journals, leading to marketing and media coverage and inspiring consumers to buy.
The Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, an industry association that markets and regulates most of the world’s maple syrup, has long funded Dr. Seeram’s work. The association and the Canadian government have together provided at least $2.8 million for his research, according to a 2019 grant application. The association disputed that figure but would not provide details; neither would Dr. Seeram.
The association has also hired him for consulting and what it termed “PR activities” for at least a decade, according to emails and invoices. In 2023, his fees totaled $37,000, emails show.
In response to one of several emails from association officials thanking him for his work, he wrote in 2018 that he would “always work to find ways to promote maple products from Quebec.”
The maple association approached him in 2009, after the owners of POM Wonderful had funded and used some of his research on pomegranate to promote their juice during the pomegranate craze of the 2000s. (The Federal Trade Commission later issued a cease-and-desist order accusing the company of making misleading or false claims, based in part on a study he coauthored.)
Though Dr. Seeram had not previously researched maple, he told The Examination he was intrigued because he had recently moved to the Northeast, where it is an important agricultural product. Over the next couple of years, Dr. Seeram announced he had discovered dozens of polyphenols in maple syrup, including one his team named Quebecol.
Based on his lab tests of concentrated compounds, he began suggesting that maple syrup had wide-ranging applications for human health.
“Maple syrup is becoming a champion food,” he said in a 2011 press release. “Several of these compounds possess antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties, which have been shown to fight cancer, diabetes and bacterial illnesses.”
But experts say the low levels of these compounds in syrup are unlikely to improve health. Dr. Seeram acknowledged in interviews that a person would have to consume gallons of maple syrup to get the nutritional equivalent of the extracts. He noted, as he often has, that he isn’t encouraging anyone to consume more sugar, merely to choose maple syrup over alternatives.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, another important benefactor, awarded more than $2.6 million for Dr. Seeram’s work. This included nearly $500,000 in 2017 to study whether maple syrup extract could improve the health of obese mice. Their health did not improve, and in some cases worsened, according to study findings cited by a government website and a student dissertation. The results weren’t published in an academic journal. Dr. Seeram, who in recent weeks stopped responding to queries from The Examination and The Times, didn’t answer questions about this study.
In 2018, the U.S.D.A. awarded $500,000 to a group led by Dr. Seeram for a promotional campaign that would showcase maple research on a University of Rhode Island website. Dr. Seeram’s grant application said he would be responsible for translating the science into “lay-friendly terminology.”
The website, overseen by his team, called maple syrup “immensely healthy for you.” And though it carried disclaimers that more research was needed, it made misleading statements connecting studies of reduced-sugar maple extract to the consumption of maple syrup, such as: “Did you ever think that you could fight high blood sugar with some things as sugary and delicious as maple syrup?”
It also said the Quebecol compound could become a “potential cancer prevention drug,” noting that it looked “remarkably similar” to the breast cancer drug Tamoxifen — a comparison Dr. Seeram has also made in presentations.
In interviews, three cancer researchers called this comparison misleading. Geoffrey Greene of the University of Chicago said it was like expecting the brother of a concert violinist to also be a concert violinist because they looked similar.
When asked why he has used his research to promote maple products, Dr. Seeram said he was simply fulfilling the terms of the government grant. A U.S.D.A. spokeswoman said the University of Rhode Island was responsible for the website’s claims.
The university wouldn’t comment on the research. After inquiries from reporters, the website was taken down. The university said this was part of a broader effort to remove dormant pages.
One of Dr. Seeram’s studies involved giving maple syrup extract to genetically modified worms to examine Alzheimer’s-related effects. His team observed that some worms fared better, but on average they were worse off. Nevertheless, the top-line summary in Dr. Seeram’s paper, published in 2016 by the journal Neurochemical Research, ignored the negative results and said the syrup extract “showed protective effects” for the worms.
An industry association press release said maple syrup extract had prolonged the worms’ lives — even though on average they died sooner — with a disclaimer that more research was needed. That nuance was lost in headlines in Canada, India, England and the United States proclaiming that maple syrup could protect against Alzheimer’s.
Christopher Link of the University of Colorado Boulder, who pioneered Alzheimer’s research on that kind of worm, criticized the study, citing the lack of basic details like the number of worms tested and whether the experiment had been replicated. Dozens of plant extracts have produced positive results in similar experiments, Dr. Link said, but that doesn’t mean they have real-world applications.
In a statement, Julie Barbeau of the maple association said it adheres to strict ethics rules and has had “no influence whatsoever” on the scores of research projects it has backed.
At least a dozen of Dr. Seeram’s papers that the maple association says it funded didn’t disclose that relationship. Also not disclosed in his papers: his paid consultant role and a Canadian maple extract patent that names him and Ms. Barbeau as co-inventors.
Six publishers of Dr. Seeram’s work said they require authors to declare potential conflicts of interest. Dr. Seeram did not respond to questions about his disclosures.
In public statements, he has acknowledged receiving financial support from the maple association. And in earlier interviews, he said that industry funding is vital, because other research dollars are scarce. He also defended his patents, saying, “The driver here is not for me to get rich.” The maple association said it was protecting its intellectual property.
Last year, the association hailed a new study, which it funded, as the “first human clinical trial” of maple syrup.
Participants replaced a small amount of sugar in their diet with maple syrup — for instance, to sweeten coffee. The scientists told Newsweek that the results, published in The Journal of Nutrition, showed that maple syrup improved measures of blood sugar, blood pressure and fat, and might help lower the risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
Dr. Seeram, who was not an author of the study, said the results validated his work.
But three independent experts who reviewed the research said the conclusions were overstated — emphasizing a few positive results among dozens of measures — and the study appeared to show no meaningful difference between maple syrup and refined sugar.
“They took it too far,” said Kimber Stanhope, a nutritional biologist at the University of California, Davis.
The lead researcher, André Marette of Laval University, said that while the differences between maple syrup and refined sugar were “modest,” they were meaningful. Through a public relations firm hired by the industry association, he said, “We were careful to state that the clinical relevance of the work will need to be further substantiated.”
In the meantime, the findings have reached the general public. “Sweet!” effused a headline in a women’s magazine last fall. “Maple Syrup in Coffee Could Help You Lose Weight.”
Mago Torres contributed reporting.
