APRIL 8 ― When the prime minister announced the abolishment of the sugar subsidy in his Budget 2014 speech, he cited rising health concerns linked to excessive sugar consumption.

Not many ― maybe no one ― bought that reasoning, but the statistics were no joke. According to the prime minister, statistics indicate that 2.6 million Malaysians aged 30 and above are diabetic.

That jives with the findings of the 2011 National Health and Morbidity Survey, which found that at least 2.6 million adults in Malaysia already have diabetes. And just last year the Obesity Prevention Council estimated that that number has risen to 3.6 million.

Is it an epidemic? Sure looks like one, although it isn’t technically. Oxford defines an epidemic as “a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.”

But let’s not get too deep into the technicalities of definition. Whichever way we look at it, this is a big problem. And not just for us but for the whole world as well.

Last year, Credit-Suisse Research Institute published a study called “Sugar: Consumption at a Crossroads” which looked at how consumption of sugar and sweeteners affects us. Among the findings are that some 400 million people worldwide has Type 2 diabetes and 4.8 million people die of it every year.

Globally, the healthcare costs from excessive sugar intake comea to US$470 billion (RM1,537 billion), or over 10 per cent of the entire healthcare costs of the world. And by 2020 the research institute expects things to get worse with half a billion people affected by the disease.

So why is it so prevalent? Another interesting finding by Credit-Suisse is that the world average daily consumption of added sugar stands at 17 teaspoons per person.

That is 45 per cent higher than it was 30 years ago. In fact sugar effectively makes up 17 per cent of our diet today.

Coming back to Malaysia, a survey by the Consumers Association of Penang in 2005 found that Malaysians consume an average of 26 teaspoons of sugar per day. That’s 52.9 per cent more than the 17 teaspoons average in the 1970s.

According to the Malaysian Diabetes Association, a teaspoon is about 5 grammes of sugar, so on average Malaysians take in 130 grams of sugar per day. That’s 910 grammes a week, or nearly a whole 1-kilogramme pack within seven days.

And a major source of added sugar in our daily diet is from sweetened drinks — Credit Suisse estimates that beverages account for some 43 per cent of our daily sugar intake.

Just for drinks alone, Malaysians add an average of seven teaspoons of sugar, according to the Health Ministry in 2012. That does not include other already sweetened drinks that we don’t usually add more sugar to — I recall vividly an old public service announcement on television back in the 1990s, which said one can of carbonated drinks contains up to nine teaspoons of sugar.

Bearing in mind that our bodies don’t easily register calories from drinks, it is easy to underestimate how much sugar we’re drinking. In comparison, the American Heart Association recommends a daily intake of six teaspoons for women and nine for men.

The problem when we consume so much excess sugar is that our bodies can’t handle it. We’re not made to consume limitless amounts of sugar. And when we take in too much consistently, our bodies sometimes break — apart from Type 2 diabetes, we also risk obesity, cardiovascular diseases. Even Alzheimer's has been linked to excessive sugar consumption, although not exclusively.

Earlier this month, Eve Schaub, author of Year of No Sugar: A Memoir wrote about her family’s experience after going one year without added sugar bar a monthly cheat treat of a sugary dessert.

As the year progressed they began enjoying food with added sugar less and less, and eventually a very sweet pie — which she would have enjoyed before that sugarless year — made her feel ill.

“Has sugar always made me feel bad; but because it was everywhere, I just never noticed it before?” wrote Schaub about the incident.

That question applies to all of us too. Are we simply not noticing how excess sugar is hurting our bodies? It is something especially fitting to ponder today which is the World Health Day sponsored by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

As part of promoting her book, Schaub is organising a “Day of No Sugar” challenge today, where people would have to go for one day without consuming any added sugar.

According to Schaub, after one year without added sugar her entire family is healthier and stronger. Sounds like a good reason to take the challenge on.

*The writer enjoys drinking tea and sometimes coffee without sugar, but admits that it is an acquired taste.

**This is the personal opinion of the columnist.