Study: No More Than 6 Teaspoons of Added Sugar per Day
JAMA. Published online April 19, 2023. doi:10.1001/jama.2023.6285
Moderate-quality evidence has tied high intake of sugars, particularly those containing fructose, with a range of poor outcomes, such as obesity in children, coronary heart disease, and depression, according to an umbrella review of 73 meta-analyses that included 8601 studies, a majority of which were observational.
Low-quality evidence linked each additional serving of a sugar-sweetened beverage per week with a 4% higher risk of gout. Each extra cup per day of a sugar-sweetened drink was associated with a 17% and a 4% higher risk of coronary heart disease and all-cause mortality, respectively.
“[W]e recommend reducing the consumption of free sugars or added sugars to below 25 g/day,” the researchers wrote in The BMJ. That translates to about 6 teaspoons daily. The authors also advised limiting sugar-sweetened beverages to less than 1 a week.
