Sugar Sweetened Beverage Tax Gaining Steam Overseas

KYW's Medical Reports Sponsored By Independence Blue Cross

By Dr. Brian McDonough, Medical Editor

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- We are no strangers to the concept of a sugar sweetened beverage tax -- and now the concept is gaining steam in the United Kingdom.

According to an article in the Journal Lancet Public Health, Great Britain is proposing a tiered sugar-sweetened beverage tax that leaders feel will have significant beneficial impacts on prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes, along with reductions in dental cavities.

They actually looked at numbers in the report: the switch to beverages with reduced sugar is expected to lead to a drop in obesity prevalence by about 144,383 per 15,470,813 obese individuals.

The researcher from Oxford University said this would mean 19,094 fewer cases of type 2 diabetes per year and a predicted drop in 269,375 dental cavities per year.