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Response to launch of 'Action on Sugar' group
January 2014
Sugar Nutrition UK Response to claims made in regards to launch of the group 'Action on Sugar'.
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January 2014
Response to claims made in relation to launch of the group 'Action on Sugar'
This organisations claims are not supported by the consensus of scientific evidence. The international authority, the World Health Organisation, funded a review on sugar and obesity published last year which concluded that any link to body weight was due to overconsumption of calories and was not specific to sugars. It is simply not right to say that reducing the amount of sugar in foods will always result in a reduction of calories. In most cases the sugar will need to be replaced by another ingredient and the reformulated recipes can contain more calories than the original.
There have also been numerous studies, which have investigated potential links between sugar and diabetes, with experts from the British Dietetic Association, European Food Safety Authority, and Institute of Medicine being very clear that diabetes is not caused by eating sugar.
Respected expert committees have reviewed the evidence over many years and all have concluded that the balance of available evidence does not implicate sugar in any of the so-called 'lifestyle diseases'.
References
Te Morenga L, Mallard S, Mann J. Dietary sugars and body weight: Systematic review and meta-analyses of randomised controlled trials and cohort studies. BMJ. 2013;346:e7492-e7492
European Food Safety Authority (2010) Scientific Opinion on dietary reference values for carbohydrates and dietary fibre. The EFSA Journal 8(3): 1462
Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (2002) Dietary Reference Intakes for Energy, Carbohydrate, Fiber, Fat, Fatty Acids, Cholesterol, Protein, and Amino Acids (Macronutrients) The National Academies Press, Washington
Food and Agriculture Organization (1998) Report of a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Consultation. Carbohydrates in Human Nutrition. FAO Food and Nutrition Paper No 66
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Sugar Nutrition UK is an association principally funded by UK sugar manufacturers and is involved in promoting nutrition research and raising awareness among academics, health professionals, the media and the public about sugars and their role in health.