Average daily consumption of sugar must be halved, says WHO

The recommended average daily recommended intake of sugar should be halved so that it makes up 5% or less of a person’s total energy consumption, new guidelines from the World Health Organization have said.

In draft guidance WHO recommended that policy makers should ensure that all monosaccharides and disaccharides added to food or found in honey, fruit syrups, fruit juice, and concentrate should be at most 10% of a person’s energy consumption but that ideally it should be cut to 5%. WHO’s current advice is that sugar should make up 10% or less of a person’s energy consumption.

The lower limit of sugar intake for an adult whose total energy consumption is 2000 kilocalories a day is equivalent to around 25 …