Department of Pediatrics, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
Institute for Health Policy Studies, University of California, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
Nutrients. 2020 Nov 5;12(11):3401. doi: 10.3390/nu12113401.
Past public health crises (e.g., tobacco, alcohol, opioids, cholera, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), lead, pollution, venereal disease, even coronavirus (COVID-19) have been met with interventions targeted both at the individual and all of society. While the healthcare community is very aware that the global pandemic of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) has its origins in our Western ultraprocessed food diet, society has been slow to initiate any interventions other than public education, which has been ineffective, in part due to food industry interference. This article provides the rationale for such public health interventions, by compiling the evidence that added sugar, and by proxy the ultraprocessed food category, meets the four criteria set by the public health community as necessary and sufficient for regulation-abuse, toxicity, ubiquity, and externalities (How does your consumption affect me?). To their credit, some countries have recently heeded this science and have instituted sugar taxation policies to help ameliorate NCDs within their borders. This article also supplies scientific counters to food industry talking points, and sample intervention strategies, in order to guide both scientists and policy makers in instituting further appropriate public health measures to quell this pandemic.
过去的公共卫生危机(例如烟草、酒精、阿片类药物、霍乱、人类免疫缺陷病毒(HIV)、铅、污染、性病,甚至冠状病毒(COVID-19))都采取了针对个人和整个社会的干预措施。尽管医疗保健界非常清楚,非传染性疾病(NCD)的全球大流行起源于我们西方的超加工食品饮食,但社会迟迟没有采取任何干预措施,除了公共教育,但这并没有效果,部分原因是食品行业的干扰。本文通过收集证据,证明添加糖(以及超加工食品类别)符合公共卫生界规定的监管滥用、毒性、普遍性和外部性(你的消费如何影响我?)这四个标准,为这些公共卫生干预措施提供了依据。值得称赞的是,一些国家最近已经注意到这一科学,并制定了糖税政策,以帮助缓解其境内的 NCD 问题。本文还提供了针对食品行业观点的科学反驳,并提供了一些干预策略的示例,以指导科学家和政策制定者采取进一步适当的公共卫生措施来控制这一流行病。