ADDED SUGARS AND FREE SUGARS
The 2013 Australian Dietary Guidelines (ADG) advises Australians to limit their intakes of foods and beverages containing added sugars.1 Diets high in added sugars may displace nutritious foods with energy-dense, nutrient poor foods, and are associated with weight gain and dental caries.1,2 Added sugars include sucrose, fructose, dextrose, lactose and sugar syrups such as glucose syrup which are added during manufacture of foods or added by the consumer in the preparation of food and beverages.3
The term 'free sugars' extends the definition of added sugars to include sugars naturally present in honey, fruit juice and fruit juice concentrates. In 2015 the World Health Organisation (WHO) issued a recommendation that both adults and children reduce their intake of free sugars to less than 10% of total dietary energy to help reduce the significant non-communicable disease burden from unhealthy weight gain and dental caries.2
ENDNOTES
1 National Health and Medical Research Council, 2013, Eat For Health: Australian Dietary Guidelines, Canberra: Australian Government, <https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/_files_nhmrc/publications/attachments/n55_australian_dietary_guidelines_130530.pdf >, Last accessed 19/04/2016.
2 World Health Organization, 2015, Guideline: Sugars intake for adults and children, Geneva: WHO, <http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/149782/1/9789241549028_eng.pdf>, Last accessed 19/04/2016.
3 Food Standards Australia New Zealand, 2016, Determining the amount of added Sugars and free sugars in foods listed in the AUSNUT 2011-13 dataset; Canberra: Australian Government, <http://www.foodstandards.gov.au/science/monitoringnutrients/ausnut/>, Last accessed 19/04/2016.
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