US researchers say sugar tax needed

San Francisco, CA, United States (AHN) – The government should tax sweetened drinks and food and identify sugar alongside alcohol and tobacco as a threat to health, according to researchers in the United States.

Sugar consumption has tripled worldwide during the past 50 years and is adding a large amount to people’s daily caloric intake. The result is a myriad of health problems, researchers say.

An increasing amount of scientific evidence suggests that chronic sugar consumption plays a role in complex metabolic syndromes such as diabetes and hypertension. Diseases in that class cost the U.S. alone about $65 billion a year in lost productivity and $150 billion in lost productivity.

On a global basis, about 35 million people die every year of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease, the authors of the study say.

The authors of the study are all at the University of California at San Francisco. They are health policy researchers Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis and pediatrics and obesity specialist Robert.

Results of their study were published on Thursday in the journal Nature.

The U.S. government is considering a soda tax of 10 to 12 cents, which would bring in around $14 billion annually in revenue.

However, the researchers say that the price would have to double to significantly reduce soda consumption.

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