Associação entre bebidas adoçadas e consumo calórico em refeições na população brasileira.

Abstract

Over the past decades, an increase has been observed in the availability of beverages that are high in energy and rapidly absorbed sugar. These sugar-sweetened beverages, whose consumption has increased in Brazil as well as in other parts of the world, are considered risk factors for obesity and diabetes. The consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages can lead to positive energy balance and consequently to weight gain. This association can be explained by the compensatory regulation of liquid calories. Caloric compensation occurs when there is a reduction in the caloric consumption derived from solid food to compensate for the liquid calories added to the meal or diet. However, the evidence for a public health policy recommendation remains inconclusive. Among reasons for the lack of consensus are the diversity of study designs, experiments conducted in controlled environments that do not reflect the natural consumption of food and beverages, and the use of small or convenient samples. This dissertation studied the association between sugar-sweetened beverages and energy intake, analyzing if calories of sugar-sweetened beverages are compensated during meals in a pragmatic environment. The dietary data was obtained from the National Dietary Survey 2008-2009, which collected information on food consumption from 34,003 individuals, aged 10 years and older, from within the entire national territory. The participants completed two food records over non-consecutive days of the same week. The meals breakfast, lunch and dinner were identified for each individual on each of the days. For each meal, energy intake from food and sugar-sweetened beverages was measured. To test for caloric compensation, a multi-level mixed-effects linear regression model was adjusted for each meal type. The outcome variable was food energy intake and the explicative variable was energy from sugar-sweetened beverages during the meal. The intra-individual effects of the sugar-sweetened beverages on food energy intake were estimated and interpreted. These effects are considered unbiased because they are controlled by all stable characteristics of the subject, and thus the individual acts as his/her own control in the analysis. Covariates included in the model were the meal variables, such as location, day of the week, time of day, energy intake in the previous meal and time interval since the previous meal. And variables of the subject included sex, age group, BMI category and quartiles of per capita income. Random effects of subjects and of households were included in the model to better estimate the structure of errors within the correlated data. The caloric compensation was 42% for breakfast; there was no compensation for lunch; and for dinner, compensation ranged between 0 and 22%, with significant interaction with quartiles of per capita income. The conclusion of this dissertation is that sugar-sweetened beverages are not completely compensated in meals that take place in a pragmatic environment. Therefore, a reduction in the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages in meals may help reduce excessive caloric consumption, leading to better weight control.