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Review
. 2016 Nov 4;8(11):697.
doi: 10.3390/nu8110697.

Relationship between Added Sugars Consumption and Chronic Disease Risk Factors: Current Understanding

James M Rippe  1   2 , Theodore J Angelopoulos  3
Affiliations
Review

Relationship between Added Sugars Consumption and Chronic Disease Risk Factors: Current Understanding

James M Rippe et al. Nutrients. .

Abstract

Added sugars are a controversial and hotly debated topic. Consumption of added sugars has been implicated in increased risk of a variety of chronic diseases including obesity, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) as well as cognitive decline and even some cancers. Support for these putative associations has been challenged, however, on a variety of fronts. The purpose of the current review is to summarize high impact evidence including systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials (RCTs), in an attempt to provide an overview of current evidence related to added sugars and health considerations. This paper is an extension of a symposium held at the Experimental Biology 2015 conference entitled "Sweeteners and Health: Current Understandings, Controversies, Recent Research Findings and Directions for Future Research". We conclude based on high quality evidence from randomized controlled trials (RCT), systematic reviews and meta-analyses of cohort studies that singling out added sugars as unique culprits for metabolically based diseases such as obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease appears inconsistent with modern, high quality evidence and is very unlikely to yield health benefits. While it is prudent to consume added sugars in moderation, the reduction of these components of the diet without other reductions of caloric sources seems unlikely to achieve any meaningful benefit.

Keywords: cardiovascular disease; diabetes; high fructose corn syrup; obesity; sucrose.

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Conflict of interest statement

J.M. Rippe’s research laboratory has received unrestricted grants and J.M. Rippe has received consulting fees from ConAgra Foods, Kraft Foods, the Florida Department of Citrus, PepsiCo International, The Coca Cola Company, the Corn Refiners Association, Weight Watchers International and various publishers.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Hierarchy of evidence in evidence based medicine.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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