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Guidelines to lower intake of added sugar are necessary and justified

The lowering of dietary recommendations for the consumption of free or added sugar from 25% to 10% of daily calories has been criticized as being based on low-quality scientific evidence, ill-informed opinions and over-extrapolation of results from studies on sugar-sweetened beverages. This Comment rebuts these criticisms.

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Correspondence to Kimber L. Stanhope.

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Competing interests

K.L.S. has received honoraria for speaking from numerous organizations (since 2016: American Diabetes Association, Columbia University, Harvard School of Medicine, Swedish Medical Center and University of Missouri) and from CrossFit for serving as academic organizer of a 2017 conference and lead author of the conference summary report.

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Stanhope, K.L. Guidelines to lower intake of added sugar are necessary and justified. Nat Rev Cardiol 19, 569–570 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41569-022-00750-5

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