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Cutting sugar consumption could save Canada’s economy billions, but simply taxing sweetened drinks may not be the best way to change consumer tastes, University of Alberta research suggests.

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The results of a study published Wednesday in the Canadian Journal of Public Health estimate that if Canadians reduce their consumption of “free sugar” — sugar added to food and drink or naturally occurring in syrups, honey or fruit juice — to less than 10 per cent of their total energy intake in 2019, it could have saved $2.5 billion in health care and other costs.

Those savings reach $5 billion by cutting free sugar consumption to less than five per cent, the study added.

Paul J. Veugelers, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the university’s school of public health, said those figures include not just the direct health-care costs of chronic diseases related to excess sugar consumption — such as diabetes, various cancers and chronic kidney disease — they also include indirect, productivity costs due to illness and disability.

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“We call that ‘loss of human capital,’” said Veugelers, the study’s principal investigator. “Because people get sick, cannot go to work, and they die too early.”

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“Be a conscious consumer,” he said. “You know which products are sweet — start there.”

To reduce sugar consumption and the economic consequences of related chronic disease, the study recommends interventions such as taxes, subsidies and education to help change consumption patterns.

The province of Newfoundland and Labrador is trying something along those lines in September, when it plans to impose a tax on sugar sweetened beverages. But Veugelers said a levy on drinks alone may not be sufficient since, as the study notes, they only account for 17 per cent of free sugar consumption in Canada.

“Ideally we would put a tax on all sugar, not just sugar-sweetened beverages,” he said. “And the revenue from all that should be put towards subsidies of other, healthful food items so that, on balance, the food is not going to be more expensive for the consumer, and we achieve a shift in the choice of food.”

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The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the need to act sooner than later, Veugelers added, since reports show adverse affects on Canadian lifestyles such as increased consumption of unhealthy food and less physical activity.

Early in the pandemic, Statistics Canada surveys found an increasing number of respondents were eating junk food and sweets, spending time on the internet and playing video games.

In September, the agency reported just over 32 per cent of youths between the ages of 12 and 17 met Canadian physical activity recommendations in fall 2020 — down from nearly 51 per cent in fall 2018.

hissawi@postmedia.com

@hamdiissawi