• Sugar & Your Heart: Limiting Sugar May Reduce Risk for Heart Disease

     
     
    1/3/2015

     

    You probably know that too much salt puts you and your family at risk of high blood pressure and is bad for heart health. But did you know that sugar carries risks as well? Research published in 2014 found a significant link between a diet heavy in sugar and death from heart disease. Over the course of 15 years, the study participants who received 25 percent or more of their daily calories from sugar were twice as likely to die from heart disease as those who consumed less than 10 percent of their calories from sugar.

    The study looked at added sugar, which is any sugar that does not occur naturally in a food. Fruit and milk both naturally contain sugar. Added sugar includes everything from the teaspoon of sugar you stir in to your coffee, to the sugar you mix with other ingredients to make cookies, to the high fructose corn syrup added to a box of cereal at a manufacturing plant.

    Click here to download (PDF) and read more information about the link between too much dietary sugar and heart disease, as well as for tips for the whole family to make cutting back easier.