Supporting data and code for the Notes from the Abstract article "The Wrong Rulebook," published March 2026.
sugar_diabetes_scatter.R — R script that generates the scatter plot of sugar availability per capita against type 2 diabetes prevalence across 25 high-income nations. Requires ggplot2. No external data files needed; all values are hardcoded from published sources cited below.
sugar_diabetes_scatter.png — The rendered chart at Substack publication dimensions (1456x816px).
Sugar availability figures represent total sugar and sweetener availability in grams per capita per day, drawn from FAO Food Balance Sheets as compiled in OECD Health Statistics (~2020). These figures reflect food supply availability and serve as a standard cross-national proxy for consumption.
Diabetes prevalence estimates are age-standardized to national population for adults aged 20–79 years, drawn from the IDF Diabetes Atlas 10th Edition (2021).
Full citation: Sun H, Saeedi P, Karuranga S, et al. IDF Diabetes Atlas: Global, regional and country-level diabetes prevalence estimates for 2021 and projections for 2045. Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2022;183:109119.
Pearson r = 0.15 across 25 high-income nations, meaning sugar availability explains approximately two percent of the variation in diabetes prevalence. The scatter plot shows no meaningful linear relationship between country-level sugar consumption and diabetes outcomes, which is inconsistent with a single-product, single-exposure causal model.
# Requires ggplot2
# theme_1950s() must be defined in your environment before running
# The script includes the theme definition
Rscript sugar_diabetes_scatter.ROutput saves to ~/Documents/sugar/sugar_diabetes_scatter.png by default. Modify the output_dir variable at the bottom of the script to change the destination.
Copyright (c) 2026 Andrew R. Crocker. All rights reserved. See LICENSE for terms.