Tax 'Toxic' Sugar, Doctors Urge

Age restriction for sugary drinks proposed

Sugar is so toxic that it should be taxed and slapped with regulations like alcohol, some U.S. researchers argue.

In a commentary published in Wednesday's issue of the journal Nature, doctors from the University of California, San Francisco, say that rising global rates of major killers such as heart disease and Type 2 diabetes aren’t caused by obesity as commonly thought.

Instead, obesity is a marker for those health problems, and sugar is the true culprit, Dr. Robert Lustig, Laura Schmidt and Claire Brindis said.

"We recognize that societal intervention to reduce the supply and demand for sugar faces an uphill political battle against a powerful sugar lobby," they wrote.

Measures such as smoking bans in public places, the use of designated drivers and the addition of condom dispensers in public washrooms were also battlegrounds that are now taken for granted for public health, the authors said in calling for sugar regulations.