Resolved: there is sufficient scientific evidence that decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption will reduce the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related diseases
TL;DR: The evidence that decreasing SSBs will decrease the risk of obesity and related diseases such as T2D is compelling and prevention of long‐term weight gain through dietary changes such as limiting consumption of SSBs is more important than short-term weight loss in reducing the prevalence of obesity in the population.
Abstract: Summary Sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are the single largest source of added sugar and the top source of energy intake in the U.S. diet. In this review, we evaluate whether there is sufficient scientific evidence that decreasing SSB consumption will reduce the prevalence of obesity and its related diseases. Because prospective cohort studies address dietary determinants of long-term weight gain and chronic diseases, whereas randomized clinical trials (RCTs) typically evaluate short-term effects of specific interventions on weight change, both types of evidence are critical in evaluating causality. Findings from well-powered prospective cohorts have consistently shown a significant association, established temporality and demonstrated a direct dose‐response relationship between SSB consumption and long-term weight gain and risk of type 2 diabetes (T2D). A recently published meta-analysis of RCTs commissioned by the World Health Organization found that decreased intake of added sugars significantly reduced body weight (0.80 kg, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.39‐1.21; P < 0.001), whereas increased sugar intake led to a comparable weight increase (0.75 kg, 0.30‐1.19; P = 0.001). A parallel meta-analysis of cohort studies also found that higher intake of SSBs among children was associated with 55% (95% CI 32‐82%) higher risk of being overweight or obese compared with those with lower intake. Another metaanalysis of eight prospective cohort studies found that one to two servings per day of SSB intake was associated with a 26% (95% CI 12‐41%) greater risk of developing T2D compared with occasional intake (less than one serving per month). Recently, two large RCTs with a high degree of compliance provided convincing data that reducing consumption of SSBs significantly decreases weight gain and adiposity in children and adolescents. Taken together, the evidence that decreasing SSBs will decrease the risk of obesity and related diseases such as T2D is compelling. Several additional issues warrant further discussion. First, prevention of long-term weight gain through dietary changes such as limiting consumption of SSBs is more important than short-term weight loss in reducing the prevalence of obesity in the population. This is due to the fact that once an individual becomes obese, it is difficult to lose weight and keep it off. Second, we should consider the totality of evidence rather than selective pieces of evidence (e.g. from short-term RCTs only). Finally, while recognizing that the evidence of harm on health against SSBs is strong, we should avoid the trap of waiting for absolute proof before allowing public health action to be taken.
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TL;DR: The extent of the obesity epidemic, its risk factors—known and novel—, sequelae, and economic impact across the globe are discussed.
Abstract: The epidemic of overweight and obesity presents a major challenge to chronic disease prevention and health across the life course around the world. Fueled by economic growth, industrialization, mechanized transport, urbanization, an increasingly sedentary lifestyle, and a nutritional transition to processed foods and high-calorie diets over the last 30 years, many countries have witnessed the prevalence of obesity in its citizens double and even quadruple. A rising prevalence of childhood obesity, in particular, forebodes a staggering burden of disease in individuals and healthcare systems in the decades to come. A complex, multifactorial disease, with genetic, behavioral, socioeconomic, and environmental origins, obesity raises the risk of debilitating morbidity and mortality. Relying primarily on epidemiologic evidence published within the last decade, this non-exhaustive review discusses the extent of the obesity epidemic, its risk factors-known and novel-, sequelae, and economic impact across the globe.
1,841 citations
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...Indeed, the weight of the evidence about the role of sugar-sweetened beverages in obesity [46, 47] is a strong impetus for public health interventions and policies, such as limiting advertising on these beverages as...
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TL;DR: This review considers the history, new evidence, controversies, and corresponding lessons for modern dietary and policy priorities for cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and diabetes mellitus, and identifies major identified themes.
Abstract: Suboptimal nutrition is a leading cause of poor health. Nutrition and policy science have advanced rapidly, creating confusion yet also providing powerful opportunities to reduce the adverse health and economic impacts of poor diets. This review considers the history, new evidence, controversies, and corresponding lessons for modern dietary and policy priorities for cardiovascular diseases, obesity, and diabetes mellitus. Major identified themes include the importance of evaluating the full diversity of diet-related risk pathways, not only blood lipids or obesity; focusing on foods and overall diet patterns, rather than single isolated nutrients; recognizing the complex influences of different foods on long-term weight regulation, rather than simply counting calories; and characterizing and implementing evidence-based strategies, including policy approaches, for lifestyle change. Evidence-informed dietary priorities include increased fruits, nonstarchy vegetables, nuts, legumes, fish, vegetable oils, yogurt, and minimally processed whole grains; and fewer red meats, processed (eg, sodium-preserved) meats, and foods rich in refined grains, starch, added sugars, salt, and trans fat. More investigation is needed on the cardiometabolic effects of phenolics, dairy fat, probiotics, fermentation, coffee, tea, cocoa, eggs, specific vegetable and tropical oils, vitamin D, individual fatty acids, and diet-microbiome interactions. Little evidence to date supports the cardiometabolic relevance of other popular priorities: eg, local, organic, grass-fed, farmed/wild, or non-genetically modified. Evidence-based personalized nutrition appears to depend more on nongenetic characteristics (eg, physical activity, abdominal adiposity, gender, socioeconomic status, culture) than genetic factors. Food choices must be strongly supported by clinical behavior change efforts, health systems reforms, novel technologies, and robust policy strategies targeting economic incentives, schools and workplaces, neighborhood environments, and the food system. Scientific advances provide crucial new insights on optimal targets and best practices to reduce the burdens of diet-related cardiometabolic diseases.
1,418 citations
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...Both long-term prospective cohorts and clinical trials demonstrate that SSBs increase adiposity.(256) Per serving, SSBs associate with greater long-term weight gain than nearly any other dietary factor....
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TL;DR: Sensitivity analyses of RCTs in children showed more pronounced benefits in preventing weight gain in SSB substitution trials (compared with school-based educational programs) and among overweight children (comparing with normal-weight children).
1,327 citations
TL;DR: Given the substantial burden of obesity and diabetes mellitus, future research efforts should adopt a translational approach to find sustainable and holistic solutions in preventing these costly diseases.
Abstract: Obesity and diabetes mellitus have reached epidemic proportions in the past few years. During 2011 to 2012, more than one-third of the US population was obese. Although recent trend data indicate that the epidemic has leveled off, prevalence of abdominal obesity continues to rise, especially among adults. As seen for obesity, the past few decades have seen a doubling of the diabetes mellitus incidence with an increasing number of type 2 diabetes mellitus cases being diagnosed in children. Significant racial and ethnic disparities exist in the prevalence and trends of obesity and diabetes mellitus. In general, in both adults and children, non-Hispanic blacks and Mexican Americans seem to be at a high risk than their non-Hispanic white counterparts. Secular changes in agricultural policies, diet, food environment, physical activity, and sleep have all contributed to the upward trends in the diabesity epidemic. Despite marginal improvements in physical activity and the US diet, the food environment has changed drastically to an obesogenic one with increased portion sizes and limited access to healthy food choices especially for disadvantaged populations. Interventions that improve the food environment are critical as both obesity and diabetes mellitus raise the risk of cardiovascular disease by ≈2-fold. Among those with type 2 diabetes mellitus, significant sex differences occur in the risk of cardiovascular disease such that diabetes mellitus completely eliminates or attenuates the advantages of being female. Given the substantial burden of obesity and diabetes mellitus, future research efforts should adopt a translational approach to find sustainable and holistic solutions in preventing these costly diseases.
590 citations
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...SSBs are the single largest source of added sugar intake and the top source of energy intake in the US diet.(62) A quantitative synthesis of...
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TL;DR: The evidence and lack of evidence that allows the controversy to continue are discussed, and the conclusions from several meta-analyses suggest that fructose has no specific adverse effects relative to any other carbohydrate.
Abstract: The impact of sugar consumption on health continues to be a controversial topic. The objective of this review is to discuss the evidence and lack of evidence that allows the controversy to continue, and why resolution of the controversy is important. There are plausible mechanisms and research evidence that supports the suggestion that consumption of excess sugar promotes the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes (T2DM) both directly and indirectly. The direct pathway involves the unregulated hepatic uptake and metabolism of fructose, leading to liver lipid accumulation, dyslipidemia, decreased insulin sensitivity and increased uric acid levels. The epidemiological data suggest that these direct effects of fructose are pertinent to the consumption of the fructose-containing sugars, sucrose and high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which are the predominant added sugars. Consumption of added sugar is associated with development and/or prevalence of fatty liver, dyslipidemia, insulin resistance, hyperuricemia, CVD and T2DM, often independent of body weight gain or total energy intake. There are diet intervention studies in which human subjects exhibited increased circulating lipids and decreased insulin sensitivity when consuming high sugar compared with control diets. Most recently, our group has reported that supplementing the ad libitum diets of young adults with beverages containing 0%, 10%, 17.5% or 25% of daily energy requirement (Ereq) as HFCS increased lipid/lipoprotein risk factors for CVD and uric acid in a dose-response manner. However, un-confounded studies conducted in healthy humans under a controlled, energy-balanced diet protocol that enables determination of the effects of sugar with diets that do not allow for body weight gain are lacking. Furthermore, recent reports conclude that there are no adverse effects of consuming beverages containing up to 30% Ereq sucrose or HFCS, and the conclusions from several meta-analyses suggest that fructose has no specific adverse effects relative to any other carbohydrate. Consumption of excess sugar may also promote the development of CVD and T2DM indirectly by causing increased body weight and fat gain, but this is also a topic of controversy. Mechanistically, it is plausible that fructose consumption causes increased energy intake and reduced energy expenditure due to its failure to stimulate leptin production. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) of the brain demonstrates that the brain responds differently to fructose or fructose-containing sugars compared with glucose or aspartame. Some epidemiological studies show that sugar consumption is associated with body weight gain, and there are intervention studies in which consumption of ad libitum high-sugar diets promoted increased body weight gain compared with consumption of ad libitum low- sugar diets. However, there are no studies in which energy intake and weight gain were compared in subjects consuming high or low sugar, blinded, ad libitum diets formulated to ensure both groups consumed a comparable macronutrient distribution and the same amounts of fiber. There is also little data to determine whether the form in which added sugar is consumed, as beverage or as solid food, affects its potential to promote weight gain. It will be very challenging to obtain the funding to conduct the clinical diet studies needed to address these evidence gaps, especially at the levels of added sugar that are commonly consumed. Yet, filling these evidence gaps may be necessary for supporting the policy changes that will help to turn the food environment into one that does not promote the development of obesity and metabolic disease.
484 citations
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...However, the question of whether consumption of added sugar promotes body weight and fat gain is also controversial as indicated by the titles of recent reviews: “Resolved: there is sufficient scientific evidence that decreasing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption will reduce the prevalence of obesity and obesity-related diseases” (113), and “Will reducing sugar-sweetened beverage consumption reduce obesity? Evidence supporting conjecture is strong, but evidence when testing effect is...
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References
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TL;DR: The criteria outlined in "The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?" help identify the causes of many diseases, including cancers of the reproductive system.
Abstract: In 1965, Austin Bradford Hill published the article "The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?" in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine. In the article, Hill describes nine criteria to determine if an environmental factor, especially a condition or hazard in a work environment, causes an illness. The article arose from an inaugural presidential address Hill gave at the 1965 meeting of the Section of Occupational Medicine of the Royal Society of Medicine in London, England. The criteria he established in the article became known as the Bradford Hill criteria and the medical community refers to them when determining whether an environmental condition causes an illness. The criteria outlined in "The Environment and Disease: Association or Causation?" help identify the causes of many diseases, including cancers of the reproductive system.
6,992 citations
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This paper contrasts Bradford Hill’s approach with a currently fashionable framework for reasoning about statistical associations – the Common Task Framework – and suggests why following Bradford Hill, 50+ years on, is still extraordinarily reasonable.
Abstract: In 1965, Sir Austin Bradford Hill offered his thoughts on: “What aspects of [an] association should we especially consider before deciding that the most likely interpretation of it is causation?” He proposed nine means for reasoning about the association, which he named as: strength, consistency, specificity, temporality, biological gradient, plausibility, coherence, experiment, and analogy. In this paper, we look at what motivated Bradford Hill to propose we focus on these nine features. We contrast Bradford Hill’s approach with a currently fashionable framework for reasoning about statistical associations – the Common Task Framework. And then suggest why following Bradford Hill, 50+ years on, is still extraordinarily reasonable.
5,542 citations
"Resolved: there is sufficient scien..." refers background in this paper
...Several lines of evidence, taken together, meet the key Bradford Hill criteria to establish a causal relationship between SSB consumption and risk of T2D (38) (Table 2)....
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...Sir Austin Bradford Hill’s thoughts on causality several decades ago are still relevant to today’s obesity epidemic (38):...
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TL;DR: In 2009-2010, the prevalence of obesity was 35.5% among adult men and 35.8% amongadult women, with no significant change compared with 2003-2008, and trends in BMI were similar to obesity trends.
Abstract: Results In 2009-2010 the age-adjusted mean BMI was 28.7 (95% CI, 28.3-29.1) for men and also 28.7 (95% CI, 28.4-29.0) for women. Median BMI was 27.8 (interquartile range [IQR], 24.7-31.7) for men and 27.3 (IQR, 23.3-32.7) for women. The age-adjusted prevalence of obesity was 35.5% (95% CI, 31.9%-39.2%) among adult men and 35.8% (95% CI, 34.0%-37.7%) among adult women. Over the 12-year period from 1999 through 2010, obesity showed no significant increase among women overall (age- and race-adjusted annual change in odds ratio [AOR], 1.01; 95% CI, 1.00-1.03; P=.07), but increases were statistically significant for non-Hispanic black women (P=.04) and Mexican American women (P=.046). For men, there was a significant linear trend (AOR, 1.04; 95% CI, 1.02-1.06; P.001) over the 12-year period. For both men and women, the most recent 2 years (2009-2010) did not differ significantly (P=.08 for men and P=.24 for women) from the previous 6 years (20032008). Trends in BMI were similar to obesity trends.
5,333 citations
"Resolved: there is sufficient scien..." refers background in this paper
...The percentage of overweight and obese adults in the United States increased from 47 and 15%, respectively, in the late 1970s to nearly 69 and 36% in 2009–2010 (2)....
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TL;DR: These recommendations recognize the importance of social and environmental change to reduce the obesity epidemic but also identify ways healthcare providers and health care systems can be part of broader efforts.
Abstract: To revise 1998 recommendations on childhood obesity, an Expert Committee, comprised of representatives from 15 professional organizations, appointed experienced scientists and clinicians to 3 writing groups to review the literature and recommend approaches to prevention, assessment, and treatment. Because effective strategies remain poorly defined, the writing groups used both available evidence and expert opinion to develop the recommendations. Primary care providers should universally assess children for obesity risk to improve early identification of elevated BMI, medical risks, and unhealthy eating and physical activity habits. Providers can provide obesity prevention messages for most children and suggest weight control interventions for those with excess weight. The writing groups also recommend changing office systems so that they support efforts to address the problem. BMI should be calculated and plotted at least annually, and the classification should be integrated with other information such as growth pattern, familial obesity, and medical risks to assess the child’s obesity risk. For prevention, the recommendations include both specific eating and physical activity behaviors, which are likely to promote maintenance of healthy weight, but also the use of patient-centered counseling techniques such as motivational interviewing, which helps families identify their own motivation for making change. For assessment, the recommendations include methods to screen for current medical conditions and for future risks, and methods to assess diet and physical activity behaviors. For treatment, the recommendations propose 4 stages of obesity care; the first is brief counseling that can be delivered in a health care office, and subsequent stages require more time and resources. The appropriateness of higher stages is influenced by a patient’s age and degree of excess weight. These recommendations recognize the importance of social and environmental change to reduce the obesity epidemic but also identify ways healthcare providers and health care systems can be part of broader efforts.
4,272 citations
"Resolved: there is sufficient scien..." refers background in this paper
...Moreover, a number of authoritative scientific associations and committees including the United States Department of Agriculture (77), the American Heart Association (78,79), the American Academy of Pediatrics (80), the American Medical Association (81), the American Diabetes Association (82), the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies (63), the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (83–86) are convinced of the evidence and are calling for reductions in consumption of SSBs for prevention of obesity and chronic diseases (Table 3)....
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TL;DR: The most recent estimates of obesity prevalence in US children and adolescents for 2009-2010 are presented and trend analyses over a 12-year period indicated a significant increase in obesity prevalence between 1999-2000 and 2009- 2010 in males aged 2 through 19 years but not in females.
Abstract: Context: The prevalence of childhood obesity increased in the 1980s and 1990s but there were no significant changes in prevalence between 1999-2000 and 2007-2008 in the United States.
3,941 citations