Added sugar intakes have been declining as a percentage of energy intake in the US

First we headed to an education session on sugar, where delegates learned that added sugar as a percentage of energy intake in the US fell from 18.1% in 1999-2000 to 14.6% in 2007-8.

It's a big drop, although not surprising as added sugar consumption has been steadily declining in the last 10-15 years, said P. Courtney Gaine, PhD, RD, senior science program manager for the North American branch of the International Life Sciences.

"But we're still well over the recent conditional recommendation from the World Health Organization [that added sugar should account for <10% or ideally <5% of energy intakes]."​

Meanwhile, the available evidence is not sufficiently robust to draw conclusions about the effects of fructose, high fructose corn syrup or sucrose consumption on non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, she said.

In general, there is a lot we still don't understand about sugar and health, she added, noting that we still don't know for sure whether sugars impact body fat deposition differently to other energy yielding nutrients, for example.