Added sugar

In the United States, added sugars may include sucrose or high-fructose corn syrup, both primarily composed of about half glucose and half fructose.[5] Other types of added sugar ingredients include beet and cane sugars, all types of corn syrup (including solids), malt syrup, maple syrup, pancake syrup, fructose sweetener, liquid fructose, fruit juice concentrate, honey, and molasses.[5][6] The most common types of foods containing added sugars are sweetened beverages, including most soft drinks, which represent 20% of daily calorie consumption,[1] twice the recommendation of the World Health Organization (WHO).[1]

Based on a 2012 study on the use of caloric and noncaloric sweeteners in some 85,000 food and beverage products, 74% contain added sugar.[5][7]

Sweetened beverages contain a syrup mixture of the monosaccharides glucose and fructose, which is formed by hydrolytic saccharification of the disaccharide sucrose.

The bioavailability of liquid carbohydrates are higher than in solid sugars.

In 2003, the WHO defined free sugars principally by splitting the term "carbohydrate" into elements that relate more directly to the impact on health rather than a chemical definition, and followed on from meta-studies relating to chronic disease, obesity, and dental decay. In tandem with the Food and Agriculture Organization, the WHO published a revised food pyramid that splits up the classic food groups into more health-directed groups, which appears, as yet, to have had little impact on the food pyramids in use around the world. The WHO recommended that a maximum of 10% of an individual's diet should come from free sugars.[8]

The WHO's definition of free sugars based on their health impact rather than their chemical constitution received backlash from the U.S. sugar industry. Sugar companies attempted to get the U.S. government to remove funding from the WHO for suggesting that consumption of free sugars within the food pyramid should only amount to a daily maximum of 10%, and that there should be no minimum (i.e. no requirement for any free sugars in the human diet)[9][10][11][8] on the basis that the report did not take into account the evidence supplied by the sugar industry. The WHO's report specifically includes references to this evidence, but was unable to use it for a health basis, as the studies did not offer effective evidence of an impact on health.[2]

In 2015, the WHO published a new guideline on sugars intake for adults and children, as a result of an extensive review of the available scientific evidence by a multidisciplinary group of experts. The guideline recommends that both adults and children reduce the intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total energy intake. A reduction to below 5% of total energy intake brings additional health benefits, especially with regards to dental health.[12]

In 2016, added sugar was added to the revised version of the nutrition facts label and was a given a daily value of 50 grams or 200 calories per day for a 2,000 calorie diet.[13][14]

In February 2022, scientists of the European Food Safety Authority concluded that sugar consumption is a known cause of dental caries, and that evidence also links―to varying degrees of certainty―consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, juices and nectars with various chronic metabolic diseases including obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, and type 2 diabetes. Prof. Turck said: "We underlined there are uncertainties about chronic disease risk for people whose consumption of added and free sugars is below 10% of their total energy intake".[15]

There is evidence for a positive and causal relationship between the intake of fruit juices and risk of some chronic metabolic diseases.[16]

In 2018, the American Heart Association recommended daily intake of sugar for men is 150 calories or nine teaspoons per day, and for women, 100 calories or six teaspoons per day.[17]