Controlling Sugar Intake

**Michael Greger** (0:00)
Doesn't it seem like when it comes to nutrition there are more opinions than facts to go around? Every day we hear new theories about diets and supplements and the best foods to eat. Well, my role is to take the mystery out of good nutrition and look at the science. Welcome to the Nutrition Facts Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Michael Greger. Public health authorities continue to drop the upper tolerable limit of daily added sugar intake, and that's a good thing. Here's our first story.
Dating back to the original dietary goals for the United States in 1977, the so-called McGovern Report, leading nutrition scientists were not only calling for a reduction in meat and other sources of saturated fat and cholesterol, like dairy and eggs, but also sugar. The goal was to reduce America's sugar intake down to no more than 10% of the daily diet. Final conclusions would hang, Sugar, reported the president of the Sugar Association. The McGovern Report has to be neutralized. Don't worry though, we have the National Cattlemen's Association on our side, and like Big Sugar, they appealed to the Senate select committee to withdraw the report.
The sugar industry empire striking back appeared to work when the official dietary guidelines were released in 1980, and then again in 1985 No specific limit, like 10%, just a vague avoid too much sugar, whatever that means. By 95 it got even vaguer. Choose a diet moderate in sugars. In 2000 they were at least back to limit, but even that was too strong under pressure from sugar lobbyists. They went back to moderate your intake of sugars before the 2005 guideline committee dropped the S-word completely, encouraging Americans to choose carbohydrates wisely, whatever that means. If only there were some kind of dietary guidelines committee that could give us guidance. The Sugar Association expressed optimism about that 2005 committee. The Sugar Association incorporated is ...committed to the protection and promotion of table sugar consumption, and they will not allow for the disparagement of sugar. And they're not kidding. In 2003, the World Health Organization released a report, Diet, Nutrition, and the Prevention of Chronic Disease, which for the first time since the McGovern Report called for reduction in sugar intake to under 10%.
The Sugar Association responded by threatening to get the US to withdraw all funding from the WHO.
Here it is in black and white.
The Sugar Association threatening to pressure Congress to withdraw funding from the World Health Organization. You know, polio vaccinations, AIDS medications, be damned. You just don't mess with the candy men. The threat was described as town-to-mountain to blackmail and worse than any pressure they had experienced from big tobacco. But now 15 years later, 40 years after the first proposed McGovern Report, the current 2015-2020 dietary guidelines lay out as a key recommendation for the 10% limit, currently exceeded by every age bracket in the United States, starting at age 1, with adolescents averaging 87 grams of sugar a day, meaning the average teen is effectively eating 29 sugar packets a day. The Sugar Association describes the 10% limit as extremely low, I mean, only like up to a dozen spoonfuls a day. But of course, there's no dietary requirement for added sugar at all, and every single calorie we get from added sugar is a wasted opportunity to get calories from sources that actually provide nutrition. To the American Heart Association's credit, they went further trying to push added sugar intake down to about 6% of calories, for which a single can of soda could send you over the limit. An added sugar limit exceeded by 90% of Americans. In 2017, the American Heart Association released their guidelines for children, recommending they get no more than about 6 teaspoons per day, which means there's nearly 100 cereals on the US market, for which a single serving exceeded the entire recommended daily limit. And the Heart Association recommends no added sugars at all under age 2
Small toddlers are to avoid added sugars altogether, a recommendation that's violated in up to 80% of toddlers. The US is one of at least 65 countries that have implemented dietary guidelines or policies to curb sugar consumption. In the UK, the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition made new recommendations to reduce added sugars down to 5%, which is the direction of the world. Health organizations are headed as well. They always seem to be kind of ahead of the curve. Why? Because their policymaking process is at least partially protected from industry influence. Unlike governments, which may have competing interests in commerce and trade, the World Health Organization is exclusively concerned with health.
In our next story, we look at the sugar industry's response to evidence implicating sweeteners in the obesity epidemic. The obesity epidemic may just be the tip of the iceberg in terms of excess body fat. It's been estimated that 91% of adults, 9 out of 10 of us, and 69% of children in the United States are quote-unquote over fat, defined as excess body fat sufficient to impair health. That can occur even in normal weight individuals, often due to excess abdominal fat. The way you tell if you're over fat is if your waist circumference is more than half your height. What's causing this epidemic? One primary cause may be all the added sugars we're eating. A century ago, sugar was heralded as one of the cheapest forms of calories in the diet. Just 10 cents worth of sugar could furnish thousands of calories. Harvard's sugar-pushing nutritionist bristled at the term empty calories. The calories in sugar were not empty, but full of energy. In other words, full of calories, which we are now getting too many of. The excess body weight of the US population corresponds to about a 350 to 500 calorie excess daily caloric intake on average. So to revert the obesity epidemic, that's how many calories we have to reduce, OK? So which calories should we cut? That's just how many calories the majority of Americans who fail to meet the dietary guideline sugar limit get in added sugars every day. 25 teaspoons, about 400 calories. Even the most die-hard sugar defenders, like James Rippey, who has reportedly paid $40,000 a month by the high-fructose corn syrup industry, on top of the $10 million they paid for his research. Even Dr. Rippey considers it indisputable that sugars contribute to obesity. It's also indisputable that sugar reduction should be part of any weight loss program. And of all sources of calories to limit, since sugar is just empty calories, it contains no essential nutrients. Reducing sugar consumption is obviously the place to start. And again, this is what the researchers funded by the likes of Dr. Pepper and Coca-Cola are saying.