Doctor urges action on daily sugar advice

GUIDELINES on daily sugar intake should be overhauled to acknowledge its effect on obesity and diabetes, an expert has warned.

Dr Aseem Malhotra, cardiologist at London’s Royal Free Hospital, said guideline daily amounts of added sugar needed “emergency surgery”.

In a study published in the British Medical Journal, Dr Malhotra said the food industry was using strategies to play down the role of sugar in diet-related disease and called on the Department of Health to “act swiftly” to change its dietary advice.

He said: “The food industry continues to adopt strategies to deny sugar’s role as a major causative factor in the greatest threat to our health worldwide – diet-related disease.

“It took 50 years from the first publication linking smoking to lung cancer before the introduction of any effective legislation because Big Tobacco adopted a strategy of denial ... The same corporate playbook continues to be adopted unabated by Big Food.”

Gavin Partington, director general of the British Soft Drinks Association, said: “Sugar-sweetened soft drinks provide only 2% of calories in the average diet ... more than 60% of all soft drinks contain no added sugar.”

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: “We are working with industry to reduce calories, including sugars in food and drinks.”