An Evidence Map of Research Linking Dietary Sugars to Potentially Related Health Outcomes

BACKGROUND: Evidence mapping is an emerging tool used to systematically identify, organize, and summarize the quantity, distribution, and characteristics of published studies with the goal of identifying knowledge gaps and future research needs. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the study was to present an evidence-map database of all published studies that investigated dietary sugars and to select health outcomes for explicating research trends and gaps. METHODS: To update an evidence-map database previously published in 2013, we performed a literature search in MEDLINE to identify English-language, peer-reviewed human intervention and prospective cohort studies published from January 2013 to December 2016. Abstracts and full-text articles were dual screened on the basis of predefined eligibility criteria. We classified outcomes into 7 health outcome categories that are potentially affected by dietary sugar. Data from the updated evidence-map database were merged with those from the previous database for analysis and charting. RESULTS: There were 918 sugar and control intervention arms from a total of 298 intervention studies from 1966 to December 2016. A variety of sugar interventions were investigated across the included intervention studies, and it appears that the research interest across all outcome categories (cardiovascular disease risks, diabetes risks, body weight, body composition, appetite, dietary intake, and liver health–related outcomes) sharply increased from 2006. Bubble plots showed research gaps in long-term intervention studies and in intervention studies in patients with diabetes. In contrast, all 25 included cohort studies had long-term follow-up durations and much larger sample sizes than did intervention studies. None of the cohort studies evaluated dietary intake outcomes, and only one cohort study each examined appetite- and liver health–related outcomes. CONCLUSIONS: The research trends and research gaps have not changed since 2013 when the original evidence-map database was updated. With continuous updating, evidence mapping can facilitate the process of knowledge translation and possibly reduce research waste.