World Health Organization suggests just 5% of calories from sugar
The World Health Organization (WHO) is launching a public consultation on its draft guideline on sugars intake, recommending that sugars should be less than 10% of total energy intake per day. It further suggests that a reduction to below 5% of total energy intake per day would have additional benefits.
Five per cent of total energy intake is equivalent to around 25 grams (around 6 teaspoons) of sugar per day for an average adult.
The suggested limits on intake of sugars in the draft guideline apply to all monosaccharides (such as glucose, fructose) and disaccharides (such as sucrose or table sugar) that are added to food by the manufacturer, the cook or the consumer, as well as sugars that are naturally present in honey, syrups, fruit juices and fruit concentrates.
“I brought here some examples of food that has a high content of free sugar. You see, this is an average soft drink, it’s a soda, and an average serving contains up to 35, this particular one contains 35 grams of sugar, so its equivalent of 35 grams of sucrose.” – said Branca.
When finalized, the guideline will provide countries with recommendations on limiting the consumption of sugars to reduce public health problems like obesity and dental caries commonly referred to as tooth decay.
“We know that dietary risk factors are very important factors for the risk of non communicable diseases. We have an epidemic of non communicable diseases, we have at the moment 36 million people dying from non communicable diseases, most of them in the developing world, 80%. We have a projection of 50 million for 2030. So it’s huge and the dietary risk factors as well as tobacco are one of the main determinants of those diseases. I mean if you remove the risk factors then a lot of those deaths can be preventable.” – said Branca.
Comments on the draft guideline will be accepted via the WHO web site from 5 through 31 March 2014. Anyone who wishes to comment must submit a declaration of interests. An expert peer-review process will happen over the same period. Once the peer-review and public consultation are completed, all comments will be reviewed, the draft guidelines will be revised if necessary and cleared by WHO’s Guidelines Review Committee before being finalized.
The draft guideline was formulated based on analyses of all published scientific studies on the consumption of sugars and how that relates to excess weight gain and tooth decay in adults and children.