Researchers have suggested a reduction in added sugar intake to approximately 6 teaspoons per day and limiting the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages to no more than 1 serving per week after conducting a thorough review of the evidence.
The study revealed that sugar consumption was linked to 45 negative health outcomes, such as depression, certain types of cancer, obesity, diabetes, asthma, heart disease, and mortality.
It is widely recognized that excessive sugar intake can have adverse effects on health, prompting the WHO and other health groups to recommend limiting added sugar consumption to below 10% of daily energy intake.
A comprehensive evaluation was conducted by researchers to assess the quality of evidence, potential biases, and validity of all studies related to the impact of dietary sugar on health outcomes.
In total, 67 observational study meta-analyses and 6 randomized controlled study meta-analyses addressing 83 health outcomes were included in the review.
For each outcome, the quality of evidence was evaluated and graded as very low, low, moderate, or high.
The consumption of dietary sugar was found to have significant harmful connections with 18 metabolic or endocrine outcomes, including obesity, gout, and diabetes; 10 cardiovascular outcomes, including stroke, heart attack, and hypertension; 7 cancer outcomes, including pancreatic, prostate, and breast cancer; and 10 other outcomes, including depression, tooth decay, asthma, and death.
Moderate quality evidence suggested that the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages was significantly linked to greater body weight for those with higher intake, while any added sugar intake was linked to greater muscle and liver fat accumulation.
Low quality evidence suggested that each weekly serving increment of sugar-sweetened beverages was linked to a 4% increase in gout risk and a 17% and 4% increase in coronary heart disease and death risk with each 250 mL/day increment.
Furthermore, every 25 g/day increment of fructose consumption was linked to a 22% higher pancreatic cancer risk, and no beneficial health outcomes were found except for cardiovascular disease mortality, type 2 diabetes, total cholesterol, brain tumors, and glioma, which the researchers caution are not supported by strong evidence.
These results suggest that reducing sugar consumption to less than 25 g/day (about 6 daily teaspoons) and limiting sugar-sweetened beverage consumption to below 1 weekly serving (about 200-355 mL/week) can have multiple health benefits.
