Global diet getting sweeter: Study

The global diet is getting sweeter, especially as regards beverages, which does not bode well for global health, researchers caution. Research had shown that consumption of foods and beverages with added caloric sweeteners was linked to an increased risk of weight gain, heart disease, diabetes and stroke.

Currently, 68 per cent of packaged foods and beverages in the US contain caloric sweeteners, 74 per cent include both caloric and low-calorie sweeteners, with only 5 per cent made with only low-calorie sweeteners.

The added sugar enters the diet through hundreds of different versions of sugar, all of which have the same equal health effect, according to Barry M Popkin, from the University of North Carolina in US. He expects that in the absence of intervention, the rest of the world would move towards a similar pervasiveness of added sugars in the entire packaged food and beverage supply, with increasing content of added sugars in diets of people living in developing countries, while many high-income countries, despite being among the highest sugar consumers, are witnessing a slight decline in sugar consumption. An analysis of nutritional datasets from around the world revealed that trends in sales of sugar-sweetened beverages around the world are increasing in terms of sales of calories sold per person per day and volume sold per person per day.

''Consumption is rising fastest in low-and middle-income countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania,'' the researchers said.

''The four regions with the current highest consumption are Latin America, North America, Australasia and Western Europe, though intakes are beginning to decline in the latter three,'' they said.

They said that the consumption was rising fastest in low- and middle-income countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Asia and Oceania, adding that the four regions with the current highest consumption are Latin America, North America, Australasia and Western Europe, though intakes were beginning to decline in the latter three.

Due to the association of weight gain and increased risk of diabetes, hypertension and a host of cardiovascular problems with added caloric sweetener consumption, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been promoting major initiatives to reduce intake. Many governments had already implemented policies aimed at cutting sugar intake, including taxation, reduction of availability in schools, restrictions on marketing of sugary foods to children, public awareness campaigns and front-of-pack labeling.