More must be done to curb the nation's sugar intake to reduce the burden of tooth decay, experts have said.

People should get no more than three per cent of their daily calories from sugars, experts said. The NHS says that "added sugar" such as sucrose, hydrolysed starch and honey should not make up more than 10 per cent of the total calories people get from food and drink each day, but researchers from University College London and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine said five per cent should be the absolute maximum.

"Despite the use of fluoride and improvements in preventive dentistry, the burden of dental caries remains unacceptably high worldwide," the authors wrote in the journal BMC Public Health.