"The study controlled for poverty, urbanization, aging, obesity and physical activity. It controlled for other foods and total calories. In short, it controlled for everything controllable, and it satisfied the longstanding “Bradford Hill” criteria for what’s called medical inference of causation by linking dose (the more sugar that’s available, the more occurrences of diabetes); duration (if sugar is available longer, the prevalence of diabetes increases); directionality (not only does diabetes increase with more sugar, it decreases with less sugar); and precedence (diabetics don’t start consuming more sugar; people who consume more sugar are more likely to become diabetics)."
As far as observational studies, (of which I am a huge skeptic), this one is pretty well controlled for. It's not like they studied 7 nations, or 11 nations. They studied 175 nations. That allows for a whole lot of controllability for various factors.
Not on that list: family history/genetics. I believe that has already been identified as a significant risk factor for diabetes. So it's not just the sugar.
As far as observational studies, (of which I am a huge skeptic), this one is pretty well controlled for. It's not like they studied 7 nations, or 11 nations. They studied 175 nations. That allows for a whole lot of controllability for various factors.