Sugar is detrimental to Blacks who have higher rates of diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, etc. Researchers say sugar is killing Americans in droves. However, they found that reducing the sweetener in packaged foods and beverages could prevent more than 2 million strokes, heart attacks and cardiac arrests.
Less sugary packaged foods and drinks would also curb nearly a half-million heart-related deaths and an even greater number of diabetes cases in the United States, according to their new study.
“Reducing the sugar content of commercially prepared foods and beverages will have a larger impact on the health of Americans than other initiatives to cut sugar, such as imposing a sugar tax, labeling added sugar content, or banning sugary drinks in schools,” study lead author Dr. Siyi Shangguan, an attending physician at Massachusetts General Hospital says.
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Sugary foods and beverages are strongly associated with obesity and diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States.
For the study, the authors created a model to assess the impacts of voluntary sugar reduction goals for 15 categories of packaged foods and beverages.
The targets are from the U.S. National Salt and Sugar Reduction Initiative (NSSRI), a partnership of more than 100 local, state and national health organizations.
The model suggests that cutting 20% of sugar from packaged foods and 40% from beverages could prevent 2.48 million heart disease events such as strokes, heart attacks and cardiac arrests; 490,000 cardiovascular deaths, and 750,000 cases of diabetes in the United States over the lifetime of the current adult population, ages 35-79.
Health care cost savings could total $4.28 billion within 10 years of introducing the NSSRI policy, and more than $118 billion over the lifetime of the current adult population, according to the model.
When lost productivity due to diseases from high levels of sugar in the diet is also factored in, the