Sugar its all around us. An almost unoticed part of many of our daily meals
but there are increasing concerns that sugar is harming us.
It comes in different forms; such as sucrose naturally found in sugar cane and fructose naturally found in fruit.
Over the last century it has been deliberatley added to many foods. Lots of which you wouldnt expect,
from low fat spreads, salad dresssings, fizzy drinks and even some fruit juices. Experts have been concerned for some time that this gives us extra calories that we do not need.
Sugary food often contains lots of fat and other calorie rich ingredients too. The more excess calories we eat the more likely we are to become obese, and obesity is linked to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, cancers and other serious illnesses.
Increasingly it isn't just the calorie content in sugar that worries scientist, some say our bodies do not deal with all calories in the same way. The calories found in sugar may be more harmful than those found in some other foods.
A number of experts are concerned that the sugar we take in in liquid form may be dealt with in a different way to the sugar we get from whole fruit. The chemistry behind the quick spikes in blood sugar we get from things such as fizzy drinks, chocolates, sweets and cakes might in itself be linked to diseases such as type 2 diabetes.
People will be advised to halve the amount of sugar in their diet, under new World Health Organization guidance.
The World Health organization's recommended sugar intake will stay below 10% of total daily calorie intake, with a recommended target of 5%
The Director of Nutrition and Diet, Alison Tedstone, said "our surveys show that the UK population should reduce their sugar intake as average intake for adults is 11.6% and for children is 15.2%, which is above the 2002 recommendation of 10%
