HOW WE COULD EASILY REDUCE OUR SUGAR INTAKE
Most of us realize that we consume lots of “extra” sugar daily in processed foods and beverages. And I think the majority of us seniors would love to—especially if it were painless—cut back on our intake. This week I came upon a very short online article about a policy that if implemented can prevent millions of life-threatening diseases with little effort on our individual parts.
Here are excerpts from that article by Heidi Godman in the November 1, 2021 Harvard Health Letter titled Nationwide sugar reductions projected to save health and lives.
How big a health problem is sugar in processed foods and drinks? It’s so big that reducing sugar levels in those products might prevent millions of health problems and even deaths, according to a team of scientists from Harvard, Tufts, and New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Their work was published Aug. 27, 2021, in Circulation. The researchers came up with a model of how a sugar reduction policy proposed by the U.S. National Salt and Sugar Reduction Initiative would affect our health and economy.
The proposed policy would cut 20% of sugar from packaged foods and 40% from sweetened beverages. The scientists determined that during an average adult population’s lifetime, such reductions could prevent about 2.5 million heart attacks, strokes, and cardiac arrests; prevent 750,000 diabetes cases and almost 490,000 cardiovascular deaths; and save billions in health care costs.
If the proposed policy is implemented, companies would voluntarily commit to sugar reductions in foods and drinks.
Of course, we don’t have to wait until they do. By simply reading nutrition labels and reducing added sugars to our diets we can make a huge difference in limiting health problems in our lives.