Efforts should be made to reduce the population's intake of sugar, US scientists say.
Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, claim that excess sugar consumption contributes to 35 million deaths each year around the world.
Writing in Nature journal, the experts point out that issues such as alcohol misuse and tobacco have been addresses with societal measures, such as higher taxes on these products and restrictions on their sale via vending machines.
They suggest that similar measures could be considered to help reduce the amount of sugar in people's diets.
Dr Robert Lustig, professor of paediatrics at the university's Benioff Children's Hospital, said that people need to stop regarding sugar as 'just empty calories'.
'There are good calories and bad calories, just as there are good fats and bad fats, good amino acids and bad amino acids, good carbohydrates and bad carbohydrates,' he revealed.
'But sugar is toxic beyond its calories.'
The majority of people in the UK exceed the recommended intake of sugar, according to NHS experts.
High-sugar foods include cakes, biscuits, sweets and fizzy drinks.