The Australian Beverage Council has hit back at claims that a 30 per cent reduction in kilojoules in sugar-sweetened drinks would prevent 155,000 premature deaths.
In a study published in the Nutrients journal, researchers said they calculated the likely changes in weight and therefore changes in Body Mass Index at a population level, and plugged the BMI data into an "obesity" model to quantify changes in the total mortality and morbidity of the 2010 Australian population.
If sugar content dropped by 5 per cent, about 26,400 deaths would be averted, the researchers found, and if all single-serve sugary drinks were capped at 375ml, the number would fall to 13,495.
Lead researcher Michelle Crino, from the George Institute for Global Health said: "If the government is not going to implement a sugar tax, then we urge them to adopt one of our interventions."
The Australian Beverages Council said, however, that the public should be “deeply sceptical of this policy-driven research”.
“By their own admission, the authors concede that ‘Direct evidence supporting the likely impact of interventions on consumer behaviour is weak,” Australian Beverages Council CEO Geoff Parker said.
“This paper does not even consider what is currently happening in the Australian market place. For many years, the beverage industry has pioneered a wealth of measures to reduce sugar consumption, including smaller pack sizes, product reformation and ever-increasing low- and no-calorie options.”
According to Parker, there has been a fundamental shift away from sugar-sweetened soft drinks to non-sugar varieties in Australia, without any government intervention whatsoever.
“For 15 years, sales in the water-based beverage category have been moving away from regular sugar varieties in favour of non-sugar drinks. Across that period sugar contribution from soft drinks has decreased per person by 26 per cent, and today three of the top four selling soft drinks are non-sugar.”
