Sweet-Heart: Added Sugar, Increased Risk
Understanding the link between diet and cardiovascular disease and why a dramatic decrease in sugar can help heal your body naturally:
Science made simple.
That is my goal with most of my blogs when I talk about different chronic diseases and their link to nutrition and lifestyle.
Sugar consumption is often thought to only be linked to diabetes and obesity. Most people are surprised to learn about all the effects a diet too high in added sugars has on full body health and especially, the heart.
‘I know of no single acceptable study that shows a high intake of sugar in a population that is almost entirely free from heart disease.’—John Yudkin
First, I think it is important to understand the sugar I am talking about.
What is Sugar?
Simple carbohydrate (sugar) refers to mono- and disaccharides.
Common disaccharides are sucrose (glucose+fructose), found in sugar cane, sugar beets, honey, and corn syrup; lactose (glucose+galactose), found in milk products; and maltose (glucose+glucose), from malt.
The most common naturally occurring monosaccharide is fructose (found in fruits and vegetables).
Added sugar was not a significant component of the human diet until the advent of modern food-processing methods.
The Survey of Food Intake by Individuals indicates that soft drinks and sugars added at the table (eg, syrups and jams) are 2 of the top 4 carbohydrate sources for US adults. Therefore, indicates that the consumption of soft drinks increasingly outweighs the consumption of fruit in the USA.
Products with added sugars represent 75% of all packaged foods and beverages in the US.
Sugar-sweetened beverages such as sodas (Coca Cola), energy drinks (Redbull), and sports drinks (Gatorade) are the biggest sources of added sugar in the average American's diet. They account for more than one-third of the added sugar we consume as a nation.
Other sources include fruit drinks, flavored yogurts, cereals, cookies, cakes, candy, and processed foods. Added sugar can appear in items that may surprise you like soups, bread, cured meats, and ketchup.
That’s why it is more important than ever to read the back of labels anytime you buy any sort of processed food!
Understanding Cardiovascular Disease:
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the USA. It accounts for 1 in every 6 deaths in the USA.
It is our biggest killer, dramatically flying past any viral infection of epidemic proportions. Yet, is somehow not treated at that magnitude in no shape or form.
For years, CVD was thought to be a result of just growing old.
That thought was quickly dispelled after researchers studied areas in China, Africa, and other parts of the world where cardiovascular disease virtually did not exist.
CVD is a result of clogged arteries due to years of a poor diet regime that causes fatty streaks in the arteries to become plaque build-ups that eventually cut off the supply of blood to the heart. Overtime, your arteries continue to harden with cholesterol rich gunk, restricting blood circulation causing anginas, heart attacks, and eventually, death.
Currently, the main dietary culprit thought to lead to CVD is saturated fat. However, the overconsumption of added sugars (sucrose or table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup) has also been associated with an increased risk of CVD and mortality from cardiovascular causes.
Studies have shown, a diet high in added sugars for only a few weeks can cause several symptoms in a patient with coronary heart disease, whereas a diet low in added sugars and refined carbohydrates clearly REVERSED all these defects.
Over the course of the 15-year study on added sugar and heart disease, they found the odds of dying from heart disease rose in tandem with the percentage of sugar in the diet—and that was true regardless of a person's age, sex, physical activity level, and body-mass index (a measure of weight).
The study also investigated whether you could counter the effects of all the sugar you consume if you consume it in tandem with heart healthy fruits and vegetables.
Apparently not. Researchers found regardless of how healthy one ate, people who ate more sugar still had a higher cardiovascular mortality.
So you could be thin, work out often, eat your fruits and vegetables, and be in your 30’s and if you consume high amounts of added sugars, you are at a higher risk of heart disease.
What is a high amount of added sugar?
Federal guidelines offer specific limits for the amount of salt and fat we eat. But there's no similar upper limit for added sugar.
The actual Institute of Medicine in the USA has not issued a formal allowance of daily sugar intake; not surprisingly the politics in the USA are closely linked to the conglomerates of Coca Cola and Pepsi.
Now you may find that interesting, and you should also find interesting the fact that the American Heart Association did release recommendations.
Their recommendations include less that 6 teaspoons of added sugar a day for women and less that 9 teaspoons of added sugar for men.
A 12 oz can of any regular soda contains 9 teaspoons of sugar. You do the math ☹
How does it harm?
Added sugar intake accounts for higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, high chance for type 2 diabetes, and fatty liver disease which are all linked to an increased risk for heart disease.
Over the course of the 15-year study, people who got 17% to 21% of their calories from added sugar, had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared with those who consumed 8% of their calories as added sugar.
One of the biggest effects occurs in the liver. This seriously shows our interconnectedness of our bodies. High amounts of sugar overload the liver. The liver converts dietary carbohydrate to fat, so overtime this can lead to a greater accumulation of fat which may turn into fatty liver disease.
Fatty liver disease raises your risk for heart disease.
Added sugars contain empty calories, meaning they lack fiber, vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients. They are completely purposeless to our diet.
Fructose from fruit, delivers all these wonderful benefits.
Reading Food Labels:
Reading food labels is one of the best ways to monitor your intake of added sugar. Look for the following names for added sugar and try to either avoid, or cut back on the amount or frequency of the foods where they are found:
• brown sugar
• corn sweetener
• corn syrup
• fruit juice concentrates
• high-fructose corn syrup
• honey
• invert sugar
• malt sugar
• molasses
• syrup sugar molecules ending in "ose" (dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, sucrose).