The World Health Organization (WHO) suggests that people slash their sugar intake in half for even better health effects.
Currently, WHO guidelines state that sugar should make up less than 10 percent of overall energy intake - that's 50 grams or 12 teaspoons of sugar a day.
Now, the organization is saying overall sugar consumption should be less than 5 percent of your daily intake.
WHO's guidelines apply to all monosaccharides and disaccharides, like glucose, fructose and table sugar, and follow previous studies' findings that sugar can lead to obesity and dental cavities. These sugars are either added in or already exist in foods, like in honey, syrup or fruit juices, for example. But WHO says that a lot of the sugar we consume is "hidden" in processed sweets and sugary drinks, which alone contain 10 teaspoons of sugar - almost your total daily sugar intake.
"We haven't managed to get over to the public how calorie packed fruit juices are, smoothies are, colas and carbonated drinks. We need to have a big education to know one is fine, but not lots of them," England's chief medical officer Professor Dame Sally Davies told the Daily Mail.
The news comes after Davies spoke of recommending a "sugar tax" in Britain, saying being overweight has become more of the norm than ever before, and in her eyes it is the government's job to regulate sugary food and drink consumption in order to protect peoples' health.
Prime Minister David Cameron's representative responded diplomatically to the idea.
"The Prime Minister's view is that the significant things the Government is doing through the responsibility deal with industry is the right way to be going about this, because at the heart of this is ensuring people have the public health information," he said.
