Healthwire Bureau
New Delhi, February 3: The mean intake of added sugar among metro cities of India, is the highest in Mumbai and the least in Hyderabad, according to a survey.
The intake is measured in grams per day.
The survey was undertaken by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR)-National Institute of Nutrition (NIN), Hyderabad, and sponsored by the International Life Sciences Institute-India (ILSI-India).
The joint initiative by ICMR-INN and ILSI India is the first of its kind to provide information on added sugar consumption of city-dwellers in seven major metro cities of India.
The findings released on Sunday revealed that the average daily intake of added sugar in all metro cities was 19.5 gm/day, which is lower than the ICMR recommended level of 30 gm/day.
Professor P. K. Seth, Chairman, ILSA-India said: “The survey shows that the population of Mumbai and Ahmedabad, with their average intake level of added sugar at 26.3 gm/day and 25.9 gm/day respectively, have a much higher intake than their counterparts in Delhi (23.2 gm/day), Bengaluru (19.3 grams day), Kolkata (17.1 grams per day) and Chennai (16.1 grams per day).”
The National Nutrition Monitoring Bureau (NNMB) collated dietary data from 16 major States during 2015-16, and re-coded it recipe-wise and metro city-wise to arrive at the conclusions.
The other significant finding of the study is that, in general, the average intake of sugar was more among women (20.2 gm/day) than that in men (18.7 gm/day).
The same trend is observed in all cities except Ahmedabad, where men and women consume an almost equal quantity of added sugar — with men in Ahmedabad consuming 25.7 gm/day of added sugar, Ahmedabad’s women consume a shade higher at 26 gm/day.
The disparity in consumption of added sugar between men and women appears to be more in Mumbai than in other cities.
While women in Mumbai consume 28 gm/day of added sugar, the intake of Mumbai’s men is only 24.4 gm/day.
Another important finding of the study relates to the energy provided by added sugar.