Vipeholm experiments

The Vipeholm experiments were a series of human experiments where patients of Vipeholm Mental Hospital in Lund, Sweden were fed large amounts of sweets to provoke dental caries (1945-1955). The experiments were sponsored both by the sugar industry and dentist community, in an effort to determine whether carbohydrates affected the formation of cavities.

The experiments provided extensive knowledge about dental health and resulted in enough empirical data to link the intake of sugar to dental caries. However, today they are considered to have violated the principles of medical ethics.

The National Dental Service in Sweden was started in 1938. The dental health in Sweden at that time was not well observed, and cases of cavities were widespread. It was suspected that diets rich in sugar caused tooth decay, but there was no scientific proof. In 1945 the then-Medical Board commissioned a study. This was the start of the Vipeholm experiments.

Vipeholm, outside Lund, was the country’s largest facility for "uneducable retards" and was chosen to be the site of the largest experiment ever run on humans in Sweden at that time. Up until 1947, Vipeholm employees had also been part of the experiment, but this was stopped, since it was soon found that there was no way of monitoring their intake of sweets.

What began in 1945 as government-sanctioned vitamin trials were converted in 1947 without the knowledge of the government. The researchers decided, in consultation with the Medical Board, to start to use sugar instead, to encourage tooth decay by using an extremely sweet and sticky diet.

From 1947-1949, a group of mental patients were used as subjects in a full-scale experiment designed to bring about tooth decay. They were fed copious amounts of candy, some which was not available commercially but specially formulated toffee to make it stick better to teeth, which resulted in many of them having their teeth completely ruined. Nonetheless, the researchers felt that, scientifically speaking, the experiment was a huge success.

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