Vreman RA, et al. – A scrutiny was carried out of the health and economic benefits of interventions focusing on reducing the intake of added sugars. A similar decrease in incidence and prevalence of the disease was noted with regard to the results from other models. However, the averted costs and disability–adjusted life years (DALYs) were higher. This was attributed to the inclusion of non–alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and coronary heart disease (CHD). The efforts to reduce consumption of added sugars could cause considerable public health and economic benefits.

Methods

• With the aid of the US National Health Surveys and current literature, an open cohort was simulated for the period 2015-2035.
• A microsimulation model was constructed with Markov chains for NAFLD (including steatosis, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)), body mass index, T2D and CHD.
• The reductions were examined in population disease prevalence, disease-attributable disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and costs, with interventions that reduce added sugars consumption by either 20% or 50%.

Results

• A 20% reduction in added sugars intake would reduce the prevalence of hepatic steatosis, NASH, cirrhosis, HCC, obesity, T2D and CHD.
• Incidence of T2D and CHD would probably decrease by 19.9 (95% CI 12.8 to 27.0) and 9.4 (95% CI 3.1 to 15.8) cases per 100000 people after 20 years, respectively.
• Moreover, a 20% reduction in consumption was projected to annually avert 0.767 million (M) DALYs (95% CI 0.757M to 0.777M) and a total of US$10.3 billion (B) (95% CI 10.2B to 10.4B) in discounted direct medical costs by 2035.
• A proportional rise was noted in these effects when added sugars intake were reduced by 50%.