EXPERTS recommend further limiting sugar intake after a comprehensive review of evidence found significant harmful associations between sugar consumption and 45 different outcomes. These outcomes include asthma, diabetes, obesity, heart disease, depression, some cancers and death. The study, published by The British Medical Journal, is prompting experts to call for a limit on sugar-sweetened drinks to less than one serving a week and a daily consumption of around six teaspoons of added (“free”) sugars.
Excessive sugar intake has long been known to have negative effects on health, prompting the World Health Organization (WHO) and others to recommend a reduction in free or added sugar consumption to less than 10% of daily energy intake. The quality of existing evidence on the subject needed to be comprehensively evaluated before developing detailed policies for sugar restriction.
Researchers in China and the US carried out an umbrella review to assess the quality of evidence, potential biases, and validity of all available studies on dietary sugar consumption and health outcomes.
