Make wishtv.com your home page

New paper stirs up debate on sugar guidelines

INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — A new paper published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine questions many of the recommendations and guidelines about sugar consumption.

In 2015, the U.S. government first put a limit on sugar, recommending that added sugar only make up 10 percent of your daily calories.

For the paper, Canadian scientist Bradley Johnston and his team, reviewed nine separate guidelines on sugar made by health authorities between 1995 and 2016. Although all of the guidelines reviewed recommend a decrease in sugar intake, using methods to rate the guidelines, the researchers say the “rationale and evidence used to make each recommendation was inconsistent.”

Other experts are quickly firing back. That’s because the review was funded by the International Life Sciences Institute, which is a non-profit organization with ties to Coca-Cola, Hershey’s and other food companies, according to CNN.

“This study suggests that placing limits on “junk food” is based on “junk science,” a conclusion favorable to the junk food industry,” Dr. Dean Schillinger with the University of California said.

Still the reviewers claim their findings should be used to promote improvement in the development of trustworthy guidelines on sugar intake.

We hear anywhere from 6 to 12 teaspoons of added sugar daily is ok. The researchers said there is similar confusion over how much water people should drink each day.

Dietary guidelines made by the U.S. government are released every five years, so we’ll have to wait until 2020 for new recommendations.