

For a person eating 2,000 calories per day, this would equal 50 grams of sugar, or about 12.5 teaspoons ( 10). In contrast, the US dietary guidelines advise people to limit their intake to less than 10% of their daily calorie intake. To put that into perspective, one 12-ounce (355-mL) can of Coke contains 140 calories from sugar, while a regular-sized Snickers bar contains 120 calories from sugar. Women: 100 calories per day (25 grams or 6 teaspoons).Men: 150 calories per day (37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons).Some people can eat a lot of sugar without harm, while others should avoid it as much as possible.Īccording to the American Heart Association (AHA), the maximum amount of added sugars you should eat in a day are ( 9): Unfortunately, there’s no simple answer to this question. What is a safe amount of sugar to eat per day? Sugar that’s added to processed foods is much more harmful to your health than the natural sugar in whole foods like fruits and vegetables. For instance, if you add honey to your oatmeal, your oatmeal contains added sugar from a natural source. Even the Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends limiting calories from added sugars to less than 10 percent of total calories per day ( 2).Īlso, remember that added sugars can also include natural sugars. To optimize your health, do your best to avoid foods that contain added sugars. The most common added sugars are regular table sugar (sucrose) and high fructose corn syrup. Naturally occurring sugars are absolutely fine, but the same does not apply to added sugar.Īdded sugar is the main ingredient in candy and abundant in many processed foods, such as soft drinks and baked products. These foods contain water, fiber, and various micronutrients. It’s very important to make the distinction between added sugars and sugars that occur naturally in foods like fruits and vegetables. The participants were aged 18–30 years and had a BMI under 24kg/m 2, which is considered a moderate weight.The researchers selected participants under a certain weight to decrease the odds of recruiting people who had possibly already developed increased liver fat content.Males who already consumed sugar-sweetened beverages daily or who logged more than 3 hours of physical activity per week were also excluded.The researchers explained they did not study females, “as there is evidence for divergent metabolic effects of fructose on male and female subjects.Added sugars vs. Still, the average person there consumed 76.1 g per day in 2015.Įxamining moderate consumption of added sugarĪuthors of the study were interested in finding out what happens when people consume moderate amounts of added sugar.For their work, which they carried out between 20, they recruited 94 healthy male volunteers. Switzerland did not make the list of the top 10 countries whose citizens consume the most sugar. Meanwhile, the average person in the United Kingdom consumed 93.2 g. In 2015, market research firm Euromonitor reported that the average person in the United States consumes more than 126 g of sugar per day. For a diet of 2,000 calories per day, this would amount to 100 calories or 6 teaspoons or roughly 25 grams (g) of added sugar. In 2015, the WHO advised that people eat no more than 5% of their daily calories from added sugar.


High sugar intake has been linked to numerous health problems, including type 2 diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. However, many of the processed foods we eat contain added sugars - sugar that the manufacturers add to foods and beverages to enhance their flavor improve food’s appearance and texture. Some sugars are natural components of fruits and vegetables. Researchers at the Medical University of Graz, Austria, and the University of Zurich and the University Hospital Zurich, Switzerland, recently reported their findings in the Journal of Hepatology. New research provides further evidence of the dangers of consuming sugar, proposing that ingesting even moderate amounts of the substance may lead to a change in a person’s metabolism. A recent study found that sucrose boosted fat synthesis slightly more than the same amount of fructose.This in turn can lead to the development of fatty liver disease and type 2 diabetes.Consuming moderate amounts of specific types of sugar may double the production of fat in the liver.
