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Need a reason to cut back on sugar? Here are 45

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For decades, studies have tied higher sugar intakes to an increased risk of numerous health issues, including obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver and certain cancers.

Different study designs, varying measures of sugar intake and inconsistent findings, however, have made it challenging to draw definitive conclusions about sugar and health.

Now, a comprehensive evaluation of evidence from past studies, conducted by researchers from China and the United States, has linked an excessive sugar intake to 45 harmful health effects. Here’s what to know.

Current sugar intake guidelines

In 2015 the World Health Organization (WHO) released guidelines recommending children and adults reduce intake of “free” sugars to less than 10 per cent of daily calories. For someone who eats a 2,000-calorie diet, that’s a daily maximum of 50 grams of free sugars (12.5 teaspoons worth).

The current Dietary Guidelines for Americans also recommends that kids and adults keep their intake of added sugars to less than 10 per cent of daily calories.

Health Canada does not have a quantitative sugar intake guideline. Canadians are advised to choose foods with little to no added sugars and to replace sugary drinks, which include fruit juice, with water.

Added sugars versus free sugars

Added sugars are those used in food manufacturing (and at home) to sweeten foods, or to provide other benefits such as thickening, texturizing or browning. They go by more than 60 different names including table sugar, cane syrup, brown rice syrup, maltose, dextrose and glucose-fructose.

Artificial sweeteners tied to increased heart risk, 2022 study finds

“Free” sugars, as defined by WHO, include added sugars plus sugars present in honey, maple syrup, agave syrup, fruit juice and fruit juice concentrates which have been removed from whole foods and are “free” to sweeten foods.

Natural sugars are ones that occur naturally in whole fruits (fructose) and unsweetened dairy products (lactose). Naturally occurring sugars come packaged with other nutrients and, in the case of fruit, protective phytochemicals.

The latest research, recommendations

The evidence review, published online April 5 in the journal The BMJ, analyzed the results of 73 meta-analyses, which included 8,601 individual studies, that investigated the association between sugar consumption and 83 different health outcomes. (A meta-analysis is a merging of data from many studies; it’s a statistical technique used to summarize the results of multiple studies.)

The findings revealed that higher intakes of dietary sugar – especially fructose-containing sugars – were linked to a significantly greater risk of 45 adverse health effects, including obesity in children, accumulation of body fat, hypertension in adults and kids, increased liver fat, coronary heart disease and depression.

‘Natural’ sugars: Are alternatives like monk fruit or stevia healthier than white sugar?

The evidence for the association between sugar intake and cancer was limited but the findings suggested a need for further research.

Based on the conclusions, the researchers recommended consuming no more than 25 grams of added or free sugars a day, about six teaspoons worth.

They also include advised limiting consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (e.g., pop, iced tea, lemonade, chocolate milk, sports drinks, energy drinks) to less than one serving (200 to 355 millilitres) per week. For perspective, one 355 millilitre can of sugar-sweetened pop has 36 grams of sugar, nine teaspoons worth.

Sugar intake of Canadians

According to the latest data from Statistics Canada, the majority of Canadians – two-thirds – get more than 10 per cent of their daily calories from free sugars.

Canadians, aged one and older, consume an average of 67 grams of free sugars each day, almost 17 teaspoons worth. Desserts/sweets and beverages were the two main contributors of free sugars in the Canadian diet. Other sources included breakfast cereals, baked products and snacks.

Healthy eating habits: 23 dietitian-approved tips

  1. Read labels to find added sugars in food products. The grams of total sugars on the nutrition facts table doesn’t distinguish between free sugars and natural sugars.
  2. For foods that contain little or no dairy or fruit, though, you can assume that the sugar grams are free sugars; four grams of sugar is equivalent to one teaspoon of sugar.
  3. Scan the ingredient list, too. All free sugars added to a food product are grouped together under the common name “Sugars.”
  4. Most often, choose unsweetened products including non-dairy milks, yogurt, instant oatmeal, ready-to eat breakfast cereals and canned fruit. Sweeten cereal and yogurt naturally with fruit; add flavour with cinnamon or other spices.
  5. Replace sugar-sweetened beverages with water, herbal tea or unsweetened green or black tea.
  6. If you add free sugar to coffee, tea, hot or cold cereal or smoothies, cut back gradually.
  7. Reduce the amount of sugar you use by one-half teaspoon each week. When you’re used to the new level of sweetness, cut back again. Your taste buds will adjust to a less-sweet taste.

Leslie Beck, a Toronto-based private practice dietitian, is director of food and nutrition at Medcan. Follow her on Twitter @LeslieBeckRD

 

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Whooping cough is at a decade-high level in US

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MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.

The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.

Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.

Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.

“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.

But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.

That includes his own teenage daughter.

“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.

It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.

“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”

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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Scientists show how sperm and egg come together like a key in a lock

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How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.

New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.

“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.

The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.

Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.

It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.

Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.

Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.

The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.

The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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