Sugar consumption linked to fatal heart problems

A new study which was published yesterday in JAMA Internal Medicine and reported on extensively in today’s Denver Post and Bloomberg News concludes that too much sugar can actually be deadly when it comes to fatal heart problems.

People whose sugar intake is about a quarter or more of their total daily calories had twice the risk of dying from heart disease than those who whose intake was 7 percent, according to the research. For those whose intake of added sugar was about 19 percent, their risk of dying from heart disease was about 38 percent higher.

The study is the first to link on a national level the amount of sugar American adults eat to their risk of dying from heart disease after taking into account weight, age, health, exercise and diet, said lead study author Quanhe Yang, an epidemiologist at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Research has already linked sugar consumption to diabetes, weight gain and obesity.

“Too much sugar can make you fat; it can also make you sick, sick from diseases like cardiovascular disease, which is the No. 1 killer in America,” said Laura Schmidt, a school of medicine professor at the University of California at San Francisco, in a telephone interview. “Small amounts of sugar are fine. It’s consuming massive amounts of sugar that’s a growing problem in America.”

The study also found that regular consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, seven servings or more each week was linked to an increased risk of dying from heart disease. Heart disease, which can cause heart attack, chest pain and heart failure, is the leading cause of death worldwide for both men and women and kills more than 600,000 Americans each year, according to the Atlanta-based CDC.

For more information, contact Susan Motika at  susan.motika@state.co.us .