There has been much talk about the tax on sugar - see my previous post here.

The tax has now been backed by MPs with evidence from Mexico http://goo.gl/VqhqcA showing that a 10% tax on sugar-sweetened drinks reduced consumption by12% . This decrease could be significant in areas of the country where caries and type II diabetes are highly prevalent.

As well as introducing the tax, the Commons Health Committee called for other measures including:

• A crackdown on price promotions of unhealthy foods

• Tougher controls on marketing, including the use of cartoon characters to promote unhealthy food

• A ban on advertising unhealthy foods on television before 21:00

• Clearer labelling of products showing sugar content in teaspoons

• A drive to force industry to reduce sugar in food and drink, similar to what happened with salt

To read more about the recent pressure on MPs, see this article.

The dangers of sugar and it’s affect on oral health have been outlined in an interview with Jimmy Steele (see here), the pioneer of the new contracts.  He explains the difference between free sugars and natural sugars and how 1 in 3 adults suffer from caries. This fact is astounding, especially since caries is on the whole an entirely preventable disease.

Prof Steele talks about how in the 1970s and 1980s, caries incidence began to fall as a result of the introduction of fluoridated toothpaste; perhaps with the introduction of a sugar tax the incidence will fall even more, especially in areas where caries incidence is much higher - watch this space for more about this in a post in January!