Preface

¹ Joint Institute of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition University of Maryland 0220 Symons Hall College Park, MD 20742 E-mail: lineback{at}umd.edu
² College of St Catherine St Paul, MN

¹ From the Joint Institute of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, University of Maryland, College Park (DRL), and the College of St. Catherine, St Paul (JMJ).

² Presented at the Sugars and Health Workshop, held in Washington, DC, September 18–20, 2002. Published proceedings edited by David R Lineback (University of Maryland, College Park) and Julie Miller Jones (College of St Catherine, St Paul).

³ Manuscript preparation supported by ILSI NA.

⁴ Address reprint requests to DR Lineback, Joint Institute of Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, University of Maryland, 0220 Symons Hall, College Park, MD 20742. E-mail: lineback{at}umd.edu.

The Carbohydrates Technical Committee of the International Life Sciences Institute North America (ILSI NA) convened and sponsored a scientific workshop addressing the latest scientific issues relating to sugars and health, which was held September 18–20, 2002, in Washington, DC. A collection of critical review papers from that workshop is contained in this publication.

This is the second in a series of proceedings publications. The first proceedings, published in 1995, were from the original workshop, held May 2–4, 1994, in Washington, DC. Because the science related to sugars and health had not been reviewed since that time and because many questions regarding the topic remained, a working group of the Carbohydrates Technical Committee decided that it was again time for a comprehensive look at the literature.

ILSI NA was established in 1985 and is a member-driven, nonprofit scientific research and educational organization. Its programs are primarily supported by industry, and its activities seek to improve the well-being of the general public through scientific committees or task forces. ILSI Europe has a similar mission, and it also contributed to this project.

The process used for the workshop was pioneered by John Dobbing. A group of internationally recognized experts on selected topics were asked to write papers in advance of the workshop. These papers were circulated to all of the authors, and each author was asked to review the papers and prepare written critical commentary. These commentaries on each paper were then given to those papers’ authors before the workshop.

Authors were also asked to consider all reports with a focus on human health that had noted scientific validity—consensus statements, white papers, status summaries, and recommendations from a number of bodies, including other ILSI branches. The reports included the FAO/WHO Consultative Report on Carbohydrates, all documents from the Dietary Reference Intakes Committee of the National Academy of Sciences and the Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee, and statements from the American Dental Association, American Diabetes Association, and American Heart Association. Authors were asked to assess the intake measures and the definitions of sugars used in arriving at the conclusions of the study and in viewing the data in light of the bulk of the evidence.

During the workshop, authors presented a 20-min summary and discussion of their papers, and the remainder of the 2-h session was devoted to questions from and discussion by the other authors and invited participants. Comments from these discussions on the manuscripts were included in the final draft of the paper. The process used in the preparation of this supplement is important because the completed manuscripts reflect the oral and written comments received during the workshop discussions.

The Sugars and Health Workshop addressed the following health topics—sugars: the effects of the hedonic and satiety aspects of their consumption on the regulation of food intake and energy balance and weight control; sugars and insulin management and diabetes; sugars and elevated triacylglycerols and cardiovascular disease; and sugars and oral health. For some topics—such as sugars and weight management—the role of sugar was addressed in several different papers, each with a different research- or discipline-specific perspective. Although the working group was aware that sugar might also be involved in other aspects of health, the time needed for in-depth analysis permitted the inclusion of only the listed topics.

The Carbohydrates Technical Committee of ILSI NA would like to express gratitude to Karen Elam, nutrition and consumer affairs consultant, for her participation as workshop moderator and to Fran Seligson, nutrition consultant, for reading the manuscripts.