The American Heart Association has strongly recommended the citizens to significantly cut down on the sugar intake from foods like soft drinks, cookies and ice cream. Women should not consume more than 100 calories from sugar per day, which is about 6 teaspoons. Men on the other hand should not take more than 150 calories. This might be challenging for many consumers because a 12-ounce can of cola contains about 130 calories, or eight teaspoons of sugar.

The results of a survey conducted between 2001 and 2004 suggest that Americans consume on an average 355 calories, or more than 22 teaspoons, of sugar a day. This is the first time that the heart association has encouraged consumers to moderate sugar intake and this is applicable to the added sugars not the ones occurring in fruits, vegetables and dairy products.

These recommendations have singled out soft drinks to be the main source of discretionary sugar calories. Companies like PepsiCo and Coke have seized this growing trend towards healthier drinks and manufactured diet sodas and bottled waters and other healthier drinks.

A lot of studies have linked increased sugar intake with weight gain and obesity and other diseases like blood pressure but others have failed to support any such relation between the two.

William Dietz, director of the division of nutrition, physical activity and obesity at the CDC, said the guidelines are reasonable, but he said it may be difficult for the public to understand the recommendation in terms of grams of sugar intake.

He said it was better to list out the foods that have high sugar content, soft drinks and juices being at the top of the list.