Taxes are never sweet. Period.

Don’t fret, we’re talking about placing a ‘health’ tax on sugar products.

And who thought this up?

Many have, in fact. And most recently, Robert Lustig, a paediatric endocrinologist in San Francisco, who penned the book Fat Chance: The Hidden Truth About Sugar .

But why sugar?

A recent study undertaken by Lustig and team has found that sugar causes metabolic diseases such as high blood pressure and heart ailments. This happens even if we don’t gain weight, the study found. So, Lustig assumes sugar is a much serious threat to our health, and we have always underestimated it. So, it’s time we taxed it.

Hmm, tell me about the study.

It was carried out at the UCSF Benioff children’s hospital San Francisco and Touro University, California. The doctors studied 43 patients, aged nine to 18; all had weight-related health problems. For nine days, the hospital gave the children food prepared specifically for them and weighed them daily.

Special food?

Yes. The added sugar in their diet was reduced from 28 per cent to 10 per cent of total calories. They also reduced fructose, a variant of sugar that causes a lot of trouble in humans, from 12 per cent to 4 per cent. Then, starchy food such as turkey, hot dogs and pizza replaced all the sugary food. After nine days, most aspects of the children’s metabolic health improved, claim the researchers. Their diastolic blood pressure improved, ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol and triglycerides came down; fasting blood glucose and insulin levels fell by a third. Their liver function test results improved. The findings have been published in a recent issue of the medical journal, Obesity.

Interesting. But how credible is the study?

To be fair, not everyone seems convinced. Even though the medical fraternity admits sugar does cause problems, they want Lustig’s small study to be expanded and conducted in ‘uncontrolled’ environments so the results can bear much more statistical clarity and general applicability. But Lustig says “the science is in” and it’s now time for action.

In a recent article in The Guardian , he cites the example of Mexico where consumption of sugary drinks fell 6 per cent thanks to a tax the country imposed on sugared drinks and junk food in October 2013.

That was indeed a brave move.

Indeed. The taxation was a step in the right direction given that Mexico has a diabetes prevalence rate of 12 per cent. Also, studies say the average Mexican downs the equivalent of 163 litres of Coca-Cola a year. That's nearly half-a-litre a day. Some Mexican parents give soft drinks to infants. But unfortunately, the government wasn’t brave enough to make a lasting impact. Just last week, the Mexican Congress cut the sugar tax by half in spite of the fact that revenues from soda taxes fetched a whopping $19 billion a year. Obviously, the government “caved in to pressure from industry”, as Lustig puts it.

He is not alone. Even celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver have voiced the demand for a 20 per cent tax on sugar drinks. And that’s exactly what a 2014 study in PLOS Medicine found would benefit a country such as India.

So where do we stand on this whole issue?

PLOS has found that if we taxed sugared soda drinks 20 per cent, that could help the country reduce obesity by at least 3 per cent. In other words, it can check 11.2 million new cases over 2014-2023.

It’s the right time for India to do what is needed, say experts, as the country’s per capita consumption of soft drinks stands at three litres against 90 litres in the US or 16 in Pakistan. But the numbers are only growing — so are the health risks, warn activists.

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