The line for “Sugars” you see on the Nutrition Facts label includes both added and naturally occurring sugars in the product.You need to read the ingredient list on a processed food’s label to tell if the product contains added sugars. In 2014, the FDA proposed updates to the Nutrition Facts label that would require information about the amount of added sugars in a food product to help consumers know how much sugar is added to their foods. The definition of added sugars includes sugars that are either added during the processing of foods, or are packaged as such, and include sugars (free, mono- and disaccharides), sugars from syrups and honey, and sugars from concentrated fruit or vegetable juices that are in excess of what would be expected from the same volume of 100 percent fruit or vegetable juice of the same type. Some names for added sugars include agave syrup, brown sugar, corn sweetener, corn syrup, sugar molecules ending in “ose” (dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, sucrose), high-fructose corn syrup, fruit juice concentrate, honey, invert sugar, malt sugar, molasses, raw sugar, sugar, syrup.All carbohydrates are made up of units of sugar ("saccharide"). The association sets these limits: 6 teaspoons (24 grams) for women, 9 teaspoons (36 grams) for men, and 3-6 teaspoons (12-24 grams) for children, depending on age. In contrast, the fructose in an apple does not reach the liver all at once. In addition, it is difficult to meet nutrient needs while staying within calorie requirements if you consume more than 10 percent of your total daily calories from added sugars. "SugarScience shows that a calorie is not a calorie but rather that the source of a calorie determines how it's metabolized," said pediatric endocrinologist Robert Lustig, a member of the SugarScience team and the author of "Fat Chance: Beating the Odds Against Sugar, Processed Food, Obesity, and Disease." The scientific evidence underlying the 2010 and the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans support reducing caloric intake from added sugars; and expert groups such as the American Heart Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Institute of Medicine and the World Health Organization also recommend decreasing intake of added sugars. “If someone is gaining weight, they should look to sugars as a place to cut back,” says Sievenpiper, “but there’s a misguided belief that if we just go after sugars we will fix obesity—obesity is more complex than that.
– Dr. Robert Lustig has studied childhood obesity for 16 years and cross-analyzed numerous studies to come to a not-so-sweet conclusion: Sugar should be thought of along the same lines as tobacco, cocaine, or alcohol, he told the Guardian in August. Now Lustig is a member of a 12-scientist team working on SugarScience, a University of California-San Francisco initiative that hopes to showcase reputable studies on added sugars and how they impact health, a UCSF news article reports. The SugarScience group has already reviewed more than 8,000 papers and found evidence to support Lustig's previous assertions, linking excess sugar consumption to such chronic diseases as Type 2 diabetes and liver and heart disease. Laura Schmidt, the initiative's lead researcher, told the Chicago Tribune in December that the point of the project is to make these findings accessible to the public through its website and social media. The average American consumes 19.5 teaspoons of added sugar a day, significantly higher than what the American Heart Association recommends (6 teaspoons for women, 9 teaspoons for men, and 3 to 6 teaspoons for kids, according to UCSF). Schmidt notes that added sugars show up in 74% of all packaged foods and appear under at least 60 different names, making them hard to find on food labels. Though some have said that calling sugar a poison is high-fructose hyperbole—a 2013 Scientific American article noted that "many worrying fructose studies use unrealistic doses" of sugar and that rodents used as subjects process it differently than humans—not many are disputing we should eat less of it. The FDA is considering expanding its food labels to include an "Added Sugars" category to help consumers keep their sugar intake in check. (The WHO says just 5% of your calories should be from sugar.)