24 | New Scientist | 8 June 2019
U
NLESS you have been
hiding under a stick of
rock these past few years,
you will have heard that sugar
consumption has skyrocketed.
We are eating more of the stuff
than ever – a fact decried by
commentators, celebrity chefs
and politicians alike.
Having a bit of a sweet tooth
myself, it is something I am
prepared to believe. But when I
started to dig around for evidence,
I found it to be, unlike sugar,
in surprisingly short supply.
Is it possible we have got it all
wrong about the dangers of sugar?
Undoubtedly the most
frequently (perhaps only?) cited
source in the newspapers and
blogosphere for this claim is a
single graph. It comes from a 2007
paper on the connection between
sugar intake and conditions such
as hypertension and obesity
published in The American Journal
of Clinical Nutrition (AJCN).
Plotting economic data about
sugar supply per capita as far back
as 1700, and using that as a proxy
for consumption levels, it shows a
dramatic increase in consumption
starting in around 1850 and
continuing to the present day.
Oddly, this neat visual isn’t
based on the sugar supply of
any one place, but of that in two
countries on different continents.
From 1700 to 1978, it says it
uses UK statistics, but then it
inexplicably swaps to the US,
allowing the line to continue
on its dramatic trajectory.
According to the authors, the
source of this UK data was a 1972
paper by John Yudkin of the
University of London (that same
year he also wrote the many-times
reprinted book Pure, White and
Deadly: How sugar is killing us and
what we can do to stop it). Curious
to know how a 1972 paper could be
the source of sugar consumptiondata up to six years after it was
published, I got myself a copy
of the original. The graph was
there, albeit with an unclear
endpoint on the axis label and
with no attribution whatsoever
of source. Not exactly what one
might expect to find for such
a ubiquitous scientific graphic:
a data dead end.
Fortunately, the UK is one of a
few countries with reliable records
of sugar consumption based not
on theoretical economic supply
models of what people could buy,
but on actually asking people what
they eat. Dating back as far as the
second world war, these “fooddiaries” do indeed show a
significant increase in sugar
consumption coinciding with
the end of rationing in the 1950s.
But by the 1970s – just when the
graph in the AJCN paper checks
out to the US – UK sugar intake
begins to plateau, then starts a
notable decline.
In fact, the UK government
“Family food datasets”, which have
detailed UK household food and
drink expenditure since 1974,
show there has been a 79 per cent
decline in the use of sugar since
1974 – not just of table sugar, but
also jams, syrups and honey. The
same data sets show that the
consumption of “hidden” sugarfrom cakes, buns and pastries and
the like are down 18 per cent, along
with a 21 per cent fall in biscuit
consumption. Intake of sugary
drinks, one of the key sources of
sugar in today’s diet, has been
captured only from 1992, since
when it has fallen 43 per cent. The
cumulative effect of these changes
is a 13 per cent fall in consumption
of all sugars in the UK since the
turn of the 21st century.
These perhaps counter-intuitive
findings have been echoed by
similar studies for a variety of
developed countries around the
world. Even in the US, currently
the world’s largest per capita
consumer of sugar, use of all
caloric sweeteners (including not
just table sugar, but high fructose
corn syrup, maple syrup and
honey) is currently on a par with
1985 levels, having fallen from a
high in 1999. That is just where
that graph often used as evidence
of ever-increasing sugar intake
stops, a full 20 years ago.
While global data is patchy, a
2014 study in the journal Nutrition
Research Reviews found a similar
trend for a waning sweet tooth,
concluding that “in the majority
of population comparisons,
estimated dietary sugars intake
is either stable or decreasing in
both absolute and relative terms”.
There is a caveat here: this review
was compiled under the auspices
of the World Sugar Research
Organisation, a body funded by
sugar manufacturers. But it is a
well-designed study and does
reflect other sources.
So can we afford to let down
our guard on sugar? Sadly not.
Even if our consumption is going
down, the expert consensus is
that we are still wolfing down far
more than is good for us. But at
least, in contrast to the headlines,
the figures show we are going in
AT the right direction. Sweet. ❚
U^ IMAGES
/GETT
Y^ IMAGESThis column will appear
monthly. Up next week:
theoretical physicist Chanda
Prescod-Weinstein“ Sugar consumption
is actually going
down – although
we’re still wolfing
more than is good
for us”The truth about sugar isn’t so sour We are constantly hearing
that we are eating more sugar than ever before – but the statistics
suggest the story isn’t that simple, writes James Wong#FactsMatter
What are you reading?
Rosie Saunt and Helen
West’s nutrition myth-
buster Is Butter a Carb?
It is most excellent.What are you watching?
Tanglin, a Singaporean
soap opera on state TV
that is now available
online. I know ... I just
can’t help myself.What are you
working on?
The Museum of Curiosity
and Gardeners’ Question
Time for BBC Radio 4James’s week
James Wong is a botanist
and science writer, with a
particular interest in food
crops, conservation and the
environment. Trained at the
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, he
shares his tiny London flat with
more than 500 houseplants.
You can follow him on Twitter
and Instagram @botanygeek
Views Columnist