HARMFUL TO HEALTH AND HARD SUGAR TO AVOID Excessive consumption of sugar is harmful for health and hard for consumers to avoid because it is difficult to work out how much added sugar is in food and drink, the Royal Society of New Zealand says. Society president Emeritus Professor Richard Bedford says a recent review has been completed to help provide clarity for New Zealanders on the issue of sugar and health, given the amount of confusing information in the community and media. “It is difficult to know just how much sugar you are consuming,” Bedford says. “With a typical can of sugar sweetened fizzy drink containing nine teaspoons of sugar, and sugar added to a wide range of food products in New Zealand including items we think of as savoury, it is likely that many New Zealanders are exceeding World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines regularly, if not every day.” Current WHO guidelines put excessive consumption at more than 12 teaspoons of added sugar per day for most people. To further promote health, the WHO recommends keeping sugar intake for adults and children to below six teaspoons per day, but the guidelines do not apply to sugars found in whole fruits, milk and vegetables. Food labelling in New Zealand does not allow consumers to assess how much sugar has been added to food and drink, making it difficult to follow these recommendations, 38 OCTOBER 2016 Bedford says. While it is just one aspect of diet and lifestyle, sugar has come under increasing scrutiny as the understanding of how it is used and processed in the body has increased. The Society consulted widely with recognised experts both in New Zealand and internationally, with research studies showing that large intakes of sugar in the diet lead to weight gain and dental decay. High sugar intakes are also associated with metabolic diseases such as obesity, Type-2 diabetes, heart disease and gout. Bedford says there is a lot of research underway to determine whether different sugars have different impacts on health, looking at causes of high levels of fat in the blood, insulin resistance, fatty liver disease, abdominal fat gain, gout and increased blood pressure. And there is growing evidence that fructose has a role in several diseases, including gout development, which is of particular interest to New Zealand given the high prevalence of gout in New Zealand’s Pacific Island population. Fructose typically makes up about half of the refined sugar consumers use and consume in sweetened food and drinks each day. “The role of sugar in developing obesity is also important given that New Zealand is now ranked third after the US and Mexico for rates of obesity,” Bedford says. Current New Zealand Health Survey data from the Ministry of Health indicates that 31% of adults and 11% of children aged 2-14 are obese. “There is still more research to be done to fully establish and confirm the links between sugar consumption and health impacts,” Bedford says, “but there is a growing weight of evidence that the risks posed by excessive sugar in diets, especially added sugar in sweetened drinks and processed foods, need to be taken seriously.” Copies of the factsheet and supporting resources can be found at www.royalsociety.org.nz/sugar. L A S T W O R D
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