Sugar is now enemy number one in the western diet

In 2012, the United Nations World Health Assembly advocated a significant new health goal: to reduce avoidable deaths from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) by 25% by 2025. Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and respiratory disease kill 35 million per year. The UN has identified tobacco, alcohol and poor diet as central risk factors. The first two have been regulated by governments in order to protect public health, but poor diet is actually responsible for more disease than smoking, alcohol and physical inactivity combined.

But what component of the western diet should be targeted? The evidence suggesting that added sugar should be the target is now overwhelming. Unlike fat and protein, refined sugars offer no nutritional value and, contrary to what the food industry want you to believe, the body does not require any carbohydrate from added sugar for energy. Thus it is a source of completely unnecessary calories.

The World Health Organisation has recently been advised by scientific experts that added sugar or, more specifically, non-milk extrinsic sugar should constitute no more than 5% of energy. That would give a limit to the average man of a maximum of eight teaspoons a day and the average woman to six tea spoons a day. And that would include sugars from fruit juice and honey.

The misleading labelling and health claims on "low fat" foods that actually have shocking levels of sugar added is a scandal. Worse still, it has created the perfect storm for public health. Therefore, last Thursday, a group of UK and international experts, including myself, launched Action On Sugar. The main aim is to pressure the food industry to reduce added sugar in foods by 40% over four years. That would mean 100 fewer calories per person, which according to the UK Department of Health would reverse the obesity epidemic.

However, the industry remains in denial. Barbara Gallani, director of regulation at the Food and Drink Federation, made a statement of immediate resistance, denying sugar's role in obesity and failing to acknowledge the multitude of scientific studies to the contrary. We mustn't forget that it took 50 years from when the first scientific studies between smoking and lung cancer were made before any effective legislation was introduced through regulation. Why? Because Big Tobacco very successfully adopted a corporate strategy of denial. By planting doubt, confusing the public, bribing political allies and even buying the loyalty of rogue scientists.

The food industry spends billions in junk food and sugary drink advertising, targeting the most vulnerable members of society, including children. Worse, the industry cynically associates fitness and sport with junk food and sugary drinks. Thus Mars is one of the official sponsors of the England football team. Yet one regular sized bar contains eight teaspoons of sugar, almost triple the amount recommended as a limit for a four- to eight-year-old child by the US Department of Health and Human Services' dietary guidelines.

How does sugar compare to tobacco? A teaspoon of sugar or one cigarette will not harm you. But over time, the habit can be fatal. Unlike Big Tobacco, Big Sugar deliberately targets children. And added sugar has become so pervasive within the food environment that we can't avoid it even if we wanted to. It is thus not simply a matter of personal choice. But perhaps most disturbing of all the similarities is the financial and political muscle that both industries have exerted to try and protect their profits, at the expense of our health. It's time to wind back the harms of too much sugar, reverse the "diabesity" epidemic and the unspeakable suffering it causes. It's time for Action On Sugar.

#WHO