Sugar Intake Linked To Heart Disease
A diet high in sugar has long been linked to weight gain and other health disorders, but new research claims that it can also increase the risk of heart disease.
A group of researchers, led by Emory University professor of pediatrics Dr. Miriam Vos, have discovered that added sugar–the name given to a quantity of sugar that a product does not contain in its natural state–can lead people to develop higher triglyceride and lower HDL (high-density lipoprotein) levels.
The main culprits, according to Alice Park of Time.com, include sucrose, dextrose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup and other related carbohydrates that typically have zero nutritional value.
The research team, which is comprised of nutritionists, epidemiologists and physicians, collected and reviewed data from a national health survey conducted from 1999 through 2006.
More than 6,000 participants, both men and women, were asked about the food they had eaten in the 24 hours prior to the survey. Based on their responses, Vos and her associates calculated the total sugar content consumed by each participant.
What they found, according to Park, is that the average survey respondent obtained 16-percent of his/her total caloric intake from sugar–well over the 10-percent recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the 5-percent first suggested by the American Heart Association (AHA) in 2009.
Compared to those who adhered to the AHA guidelines, those who got at least 25-percent of their daily caloric intake from sugar were twice as likely to have low levels of HDL cholesterol.
"Just like eating a high-fat diet can increase your levels of triglycerides and high cholesterol, eating sugar can also affect those same lipids," Vos told Julie Steenhuysen of Reuters in a statement on Wednesday. "It would be important for long-term health for people to start looking at how much added sugar they’re getting and finding ways to reduce that."
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On the Net:
Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA)