Intake of free sugar and micronutrient dilution in Australian children and adolescents

Abstract

The dilution effect in micronutrient intake with increasing free sugar intake was evident in Australian children and adolescents. However, meeting the WHO cut-off was associated with limited improvement in micronutrient adequacy.

Association between free sugar intake and nutrient dilution among Japanese children and adolescents: the 2016 National Health and Nutrition Survey, Japan

“…14.0%; confectioneries: 26.1%; and sugars and jams: 24.7%) in the present study, and the findings are consistent with the results of previous Japanese (11,15) and Western studies (9,10) . However, the mean intake of soft drinks in Japanese children and adolescents (72.7 g/day) in the present study was lower than that in their Western counterparts (66-732 ml/day) (34) , thereby resulting in the lower mean intake of free sugars in Japanese children and adolescents.…”

“…For nutrients, the largest number of days were required to assess usual intake of retinol (46) , possibly due to the relatively larger number of days for required for evaluating usual intake of meats (including offal). These factors could result in the absence of an association between free sugars intake and vitamin A intake in the present study, in contrast to previous studies wherein habitual dietary intakes have been estimated based on multiple-day dietary data (9,10) . On the contrary, the number of days required to assess the usual intake of energy and other nutrients was relatively small (46) .…”

“…All reported P values were two-tailed. The significance level for the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square test was set at P <0.05, while that for the linear trend and Tukey-Kramer test was set at P <0.001 to minimise type I error, as demonstrated in previous studies (10,15,16) .…”

“…Furthermore, seasonal variations could affect the dietary intake due to a specific time-window of the survey (47,48) . These limitations might produce Consumers with the lowest free sugars intake tend to under-report energy intake (9,10,16) , while those with under-reporting energy intakes selectively under-report confectioneries and soft drinks intakes (27,28) . However, the sensitivity analysis suggested that the influence of misreporting on the present finding was not significant enough to change the conclusion on the association between free sugars and nutrient intake.…”

“…Sensitivity analysis was conducted by excluding misreporters for energy intake (n = 70, 2.4%) because selective under-reporting of confectioneries and soft drinks is common in participants with under-reporting energy intake (27,28) ; and under-reporting is more frequently observed in participants with the lowest free sugars intake (9,10,16) . As described previously (15) , misreporting of energy intake was defined as the ratio of reported energy intake to the basal metabolic rate (BMR), i.e., the Goldberg cut-off for the 1-day dietary data and the physical activity level for a sedentary lifestyle (29) .…”