Break out the marching bands. Yesterday the Heart Association recommended that adult men should eat no more than nine teaspoons of sugar a day. If that still sounds like a lot to you, you’re not up with the times. The Food Investigators (SBS) recommend 32 teaspoons and even Food Standards Australia says it’s OK to gulp down 21 teaspoons every day.
Unfortunately, it’s the American Heart Association that has issued the new guideline. Here in the land of Oz, nothing’s changed. The AHA says that it made the change because:
High intake of added sugars is implicated in numerous poor health conditions, including obesity, high blood pressure and other risk factors for heart disease and stroke.
The AHA has clearly sniffed the wind and decided that a (policy) stitch in time saves nine (lawsuits). There are just too many lawyers in the US who would be more than happy to have a crack at helping a court understand disparities between public health advice and research evidence.
One current example is a class action started in January this year against Coke in the US. The claim alleges fraudulent statements in the marketing of Coke’s new range of Glaceau Vitamin Waters. Coke’s advertising suggests that its drinks variously reduce the risk of chronic disease, reduce the risk of eye disease, promote healthy joints, and support optimal immune function. Whereas science suggests that the eight teaspoons of sugar in each bottle do exactly the opposite.
Meanwhile, back in the dark ages, we here in Australia base all our public health advice on something called the Dietary Guidelines for Australian Adults published in 2003 by the National Health and Medical Research Council. Nestle and the Australian Heart Foundation referred me to those guidelines when I questioned the endorsement of Fruit Fix as a healthy snack. And Diabetes Australia-NSW pointed me that way when I queried its involvement in the The Food Investigators show, which told us we should eat those 32 teaspoons of sugar a day.
The Dietary Guidelines recommend that we get 15-20% of our calories from sugar. They base that recommendation on a 1994 meta-study, which concluded that the only ill effects of sugar consumption were likely to be dental cavities. That study based its conclusions primarily on four studies done from 1972 to 1992. Oh, and by the way, it was paid for by the American Beverage Association, an outfit not exactly known for its tolerance of anti-sugar messages.
Let me say that again, but slower. Australian recommendations on sugar consumption are based on a 15-year-old report paid for by Big Sugar. And that report is in turn based on research that is thinking about applying for its old-age pension. None of that would matter if just about every nutritionist in the nation didn’t base their advice on those antiquated guidelines. Or if Big Sugar didn’t use them as a perfect defence to their behaviour. Or if our own heart foundation and diabetes organisations didn’t blindly accept them at face value.
The American Diabetes Association moved in 2006 and now the American Heart Association has gone the same way. Both now say sugar is bad news for their respective constituents. You clearly don’t have to hit the AHA or the ADA over the head with a lawyer. They understand that it’s better to make sure your policy guidance matches what the research says now (rather than what it said in 1972). But the equivalent organisations in Australia are quite happy to keep trotting out Big Sugar’s company line.
It’s time for those responsible for the health of Australians to wake up and smell the (independent) research. In Australia, actions for chronic disease are limited to tobacco and asbestos poisoning. But it won’t be long before sugar is added to the list. The people we trust for health advice need to move before any more of us are suckered into a life of debilitating disease based on advice that is more than three decades old (and paid for by the sugar industry).
Yesterday, I contacted the Australian Heart Foundation and asked if they had any comment on the American Heart Association announcement. They responded with the sound of silence.
I do like a story to be complete, so here’s a note to let you know that the Australian Heart Foundation has just advised me that its official response to the American Heart Association’s new guidelines can now be found at: http://www.heartfoundation.org.au/Professional_Information/Lifestyle_Risk/Nutrition/Pages/DietaryCarbohydratesStatement.aspx
The crux of it is:
“The AHA paper bases the specific recommendations on their 2001 – 2004 NHANES, a national health survey which includes dietary intake information. Unfortunately in Australia, the national data on Australian dietary intakes has not been updated since 1995 making relevant and prescriptive recommendations regarding diet impossible.”
ah ok then … well, good point – lets not bother then.
“If that still sounds like a lot to you …”
Yeah, well it didn’t sound like a lot to me at all… until I followed up on it, and found out that the recommendation refers to “added sugars” in “discretionary calories” rather than total sugar intake. Which seemed a bit more reasonable (although challenging for many I would assume, since you can blow most of that with one can of soft drink).
So anyway, I’m still a bit confused because the Food Investigators thing was referring to total intake of sugar, whereas the American Heart Foundation recommendation is not, so the comparison in the first paragraph doesn’t appear to be comparing apples with apples. Arguably, this is wilfully misleading.
… apparently apples have around… 3 teaspoons of sugar! And I won’t even start on bananas – my pre-workout fruit of choice. It’s funny to think that anyone might warn you off eating fruit when a lot of people’s health would be improved hugely by eating a piece of fruit instead of that mars bar they were going to eat.
Anyway I digress. Didn’t the SBS thing suggest that 15% of your total intake should be sugars? That doesn’t seem outrageous to me, but I’m certainly no nutritionist, nor do I know how that comes out to 32 teaspoons or whatever it was. And it doesn’t necessarily contradict that well-known problem with eating foods with lots of added sugars – sugars don’t fill you up, so you’re more likely to overeat.
Anyway, this article seems to be pretty good (and happily, it avoids an *ahem* hysterical tone).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204660604574370851517144132.html
This advice, in particular, seems sound:
“Dr. Johnson said the statement doesn’t tell people to eliminate sugar from their diets. She does recommend using the [discretionary calories] allotment to make healthier foods more tasty, such as adding sugar to whole-grain cereal, instead of using it on candy. People who get regular exercise, she said, can consume higher quantities of added sugar. ”
It’s funny how fad diets come and go, but in the end we always come back to the solid advice of get some exercise, eat a varied diet, fats and sugars in moderation, etc.
Another quote! From:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32543288/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/
‘Wahida Karmally, nutrition director at Columbia University’s Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, said that with these guidelines, it’s important to remember overall moderation. Some people, for instance, might be doing fine in their sugar consumption but are overdoing it on fat.
“I don’t want people to go back thinking if I just cut back on teaspoons of sugar I’m going to be very healthy,” she said.’
And vice versa of course.
Sorry about the ramble.
David
I have railed against added sugars for much longer than you have, but I don’t think it helps the cause when you take things out of context. The Australian Dietary Guidelines (which, incidentally are currently being reviewed) do not “recommend that we get 15-20% of our calories from sugar” as you claim. The DG on sugar actually says “consume only moderate amounts of sugars and foods containing added sugars”.
The chapter on this guideline in the full book on dietary guidelines lists a whole heap of potential problems associated with added sugars, including details of the problems of sugars in soft drinks (references are included). The exact sentence in the 20 page chapter on this guideline which you have isolated and taken out of context states “There is no evidence that, for most Australians, consumption of up to 15-20% of energy as sugars is incompatible with a healthy diet”. (Note that this is sugars, not just added sugar. Sugars occur naturally in fruit, milk and yoghurt and in some vegetables.) It is not a recommendation and indeed, immediately following the above quoted sentence are two others, which read “Consumption of greater amounts than this could lead to a decrease in nutrient density. A diet without any sugar would be impractical, hence this guideline: Consume only moderate amounts of sugars and foods containing added sugars.”
I think that ‘only moderate’ should be more closely defined. WHO has stated that added sugars should be at a level of up to 10% of energy intake. That seems reasonable to me, although my preference was for the original guideline which stated “avoid eating too much sugar”. This was effective and provoked a big campaign to convince Australians that “sugar was a natural part of life”.
The up-dated DGs – when they are completed – will check the most recent evidence and the NHMRC literature reviews provide for all funders of studies to be identified.
Rosemary Stanton