OVER the weekend I was chatting to a neighbour who works as a community dentist in a deprived area of Glasgow.

He was telling me about a case he dealt with recently concerning twin girls aged four who both had to have their two front baby teeth extracted.

These wee souls, who were in a lot of pain, whose speech was being affected, didn’t have some freak illness that weakened gums and decayed teeth. In fact, the explanation was more simple and grim; the girls were put to bed nightly with Irn Bru in a milk bottle, and often fell asleep with the teat rubbing on their front teeth. The results over time were blackened stumps.

According to my neighbour, the road to recovery for these young mouths – not to mention the tender young psyches they belong to – could be longer and more arduous than people might imagine.

With this in mind, it is hardly surprising that this dedicated health professional is angry and frustrated at the damage being caused to so many of his young patients by sugar. Indeed, tooth decay remains the primary reason children are admitted to hospital in Scotland, with around 8000 extractions a year carried out.

But it’s not the parents my neighbour reserves most ire for, or even the soft drinks manufacturers who load their products so full of sugar. No, following the furore that followed Irn Bru’s decision to cut its sugar content by more than half, he is most annoyed at the daft crusaders mounting and signing petitions (currently at 35,000 signatures and counting) to force makers AG Barr to reverse their move.

As we’ve seen in media coverage over the last few days, many have been panic-buying and stockpiling cans and bottles of the country’s most popular drink before the recipe change takes effect, with bottles for sale on auction sites for as much as £35.

Add to that the reaction of so-called libertarians who shout “nanny state!” whenever any government of any persuasion tries to encourage positive changes in public health, and one can only surmise that the sugar these loudmouths seem so keen and proud to continue to consume in vast quantities is going to their heads as well as expanding their waistlines, clogging their arteries and rotting their teeth.

The reason AG Barr is reducing its sugar content is purely commercial and pragmatic, of course. Following years of pressure from doctors, dentists and public health campaigners, the UK Government – hardly a scourge of big business - surprised many in 2016 by announcing it would tax soft drinks with a sugar content more than 5g per 100ml (a 330ml can of old-recipe Irn Bru has around 34g, equivalent to more than seven teaspoons of sugar) at a higher rate, with the proceeds - reckoned to be £520m per year – used to fund sport in primary schools.

To be clear, then, the Government is not banning sugary drinks, it’s simply saying that from April manufacturers will need to make a bigger contribution to the public purse should they decide to continue selling them. One can only imagine they will either pass the cost on to consumers – as Coca Cola apparently intends to do - which may or may not make folk think twice about buying, or change the recipe as AG Barr has done. Nanny state? Hardly. More like a sensible decision that offers small but worthwhile potential benefits.

And, as the company pointed out in a tweet on Friday, sweet-toothed Scots shouldn’t be worried that their sugar levels will drop to dangerous levels once new recipe Irn Bru hits the shelves, since it will still have the equivalent four teaspoonfuls per can.

What irritates me most about the Bru-haha around sugary drinks is the fact that so many Scots seem to have become so genuinely exercised by even a small change that could improve their health. We are indeed going mad if we view even tiny steps aimed at helping us change our dangerously bad diet as worthy of petitions and panic-buying.

This couthy, Braveheart-esque “They may take oor freedom, but they will never take oor Irn-Bru!” attitude and its depressingly halfway serious movement to associate Scots culture with sugar, is ridiculous in the extreme. It’s worrying, too. We had exactly the same reaction to moves to reduce our alcohol intake, as the recent Scottish Government minimum pricing controversy highlighted.

The sight of a bunch of pasty-faced, unfit, overweight Scots moaning that someone is trying to take away their sugar must leave outsiders perplexed. Or at the very least amused at our absurd, laughable brand of nihilism.

Not that it’s a laughing matter, of course. Obesity and its associated health problems kills thousands of us every year and costs the Scottish NHS in the region of £600m. Two thirds of adults are now overweight and almost a third obese. Our NHS is literally creaking under the weight of this epidemic and, as the last few days have shown, we continue to either bury our heads in the sand or covet and defend our unhealthy habits. What fatheads we truly are.