Reducing sugar content in drinks (including fruit juices) in the UK by 40 per cent over five years, without replacing them with any artificial sweeteners, could prevent 500,000 cases of overweight and
Reducing sugar content in drinks (including fruit juices) in the UK by 40 per cent over five years, without replacing them with any artificial sweeteners, could prevent 500,000 cases of overweight and one million cases of obesity, in turn bringing relief to around 300,000 cases of Type 2 diabetes, over two decades.
The authors of the study, published in the Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology journal, suggest that they decided to do a study on the effects of added sugars, following UK’s salt reduction experience, which had seen salt content in many food products successfully reduced by 40 per cent over five years.
In this study by Professor Graham MacGregor and colleagues at Queen Mary University of London, UK, experts used national representative data from National Diet and Nutrition Survey rolling programme (NDNS RP) years 2008-2012 and British Soft Drinks Association annual reports.
The authors calculated sugar-sweetened beverage (SSB) consumption level (both with and without fruit juices) and its contribution to free sugar and energy intakes in the UK population.
The calculations showed that a 40 per cent reduction in free sugars added to SSBs over five years would lead to an average reduction in energy intake of 38.4 kcal (calories) per day by the end of the fifth year and this would lead to an average reduction in body weight of 1.20 kg in adults, resulting in a reduction in overweight and obese adults by approximately 0.5 million (1 per cent) and one million (2.1 per cent) respectively. This would in turn prevent 274,000-309,000 obesity-related type 2 diabetes over the next two decades.
Significantly, epexrts found that if fruit juices were excluded from SSBs, the corresponding reduction in energy intake and body weight would be 31 kcal/day and 0.96 kg respectively. This would result in a 0.7 per cent (0.3 million cases) reduction in overweight and a 1.7 per cent (0.8 million cases) reduction in obesity, which would in turn prevent around 221,000-250,000 diabetes cases over two decades.
“Individuals should also reduce their consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in the long term,” experts said.
