Cutting sugar in beverages “could save 155,000 lives”

By Leith van Onselen

The Obesity Policy Coalition has called for mandatory reformulation of sugary beverages following new modelling showing that at least 155,000 premature deaths would be averted if beverage makers slashed the energy content of their sugary drinks by 30%. From The Canberra Times:

“The results are a clear demonstration of the harm sugary drinks are causing,” said lead researcher Michelle Crino, from the George Institute for Global Health.

“The reduction would deliver cost savings of $8 billion and avert at least 155,000 premature deaths, including 47,000 from type 2 diabetes alone”…

The study, published in the latest Nutrients journal, found “reformulation” would prevent 70,300 deaths from heart disease, 47,000 deaths from type 2 diabetes, 14,300 deaths from stroke, and 24,100 deaths from breast, bowel cancer, endometrial and kidney cancers, over the lifetime of the 2010 Australian population…

The researchers calculated the likely changes in weight and therefore changes in Body Mass Index at the population level for each type of intervention. They then plugged the BMI data into an “obesity” model that quantified changes in the total mortality and morbidity of the 2010 Australian population to estimate “health-adjusted life years”…

“If the government is not going to implement a sugar tax, then we urge them to adopt one of our interventions,” Ms Crino said.

“We found government-imposed legislative scenarios, rather than voluntary pledges, would provide more cost savings and bigger health gains”…

A soft drink tax and reformulation targets for manufacturers are among eight policy actions underpinning the Tipping the Scales strategy, which the Obesity Policy Coalition is urging the government to adopt.

This type of modelling is always highly sensitive to the assumptions used, and the 155,000 lives saved figure should be treated with caution.

Nonetheless, the arguments for limiting sugar in beverages are strong.

The Grattan Institute’s report entitled A sugary drinks tax Recovering the community costs of obesity showed that more than one in four Australian adults are classified as obese – up from one in ten in the early 1980s – whereas 7% of Australian children are now obese:

In addition to personal costs, Grattan showed that obese people receive more healthcare than other people, with taxpayers funding most of the costs of those services at a cost of around $5.3 billion in 2014-15:

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Grattan also estimated that about 10% of Australia’s obesity problem is due to sugar sweetened beverages.

In a similar vein, Credit Suisse’s October 2013 report, entitled Sugar: Consumption at a crossroads, showed clearly that Australia has one of the highest sugar consumption rates in the world, clocking in at more than double the world’s average:

It also showed that Australia is one of the most obese nations on earth:

And that there is a direct link between sugar consumption and soaring health costs, with over 86% of doctors from around the world agreeing that sugar is linked to the development of obesity, type II diabetes, and non-alcoholic fatty liver:

Moreover, the costs of diabetes on our health systems is particularly high:

“Diabetes type II is now affecting close to 370 million people worldwide, with one in ten US adults affected by it. The costs to the global healthcare system are a staggering USD 470 billion according to the most recent estimates from the International Diabetes Federation, and represent over 10% of all healthcare costs. In the USA alone, the healthcare costs tied to diabetes type II are estimated at USD 140 billion, compared to USD 90 billion for tobacco-related healthcare costs. even more worrisome is that these numbers are growing at a rate of 4% a year, much faster than for obesity (1-2%). By 2020, the annual cost to the healthcare system globally will reach USD 700 billion and the people affected will be close to 500 million…”

Regular readers will know that I support measures to limit sugar in beverages, although I recognise that they are by no means a panacea.

In my opinion, there also needs to be a complete overhaul of Australia’s dietary guidelines, including Australia’s Health Star Rating System, which too often ignores the prevalence of sugar while demonising natural saturated fats.

The key focus of Australia’s health authorities should be to simply encourage Australians to avoid packaged and processed foods in favour of natural whole foods.

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