A study published Monday offers even more evidence of the harmful effects of sugar on health.
He investigationpublished in the journal BMC Medicine, found that diets high in free sugars, a category that includes sugar added to processed foods and soft drinks, as well as that found in fruit juices and syrups, increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.
The study was based on data on the eating habits of more than 110,000 people aged 37 to 73 in the UK, whose health outcomes were then tracked for around nine years.
The results suggested that every 5% increase in the proportion of a person’s total energy intake that comes from free sugars was associated with a 6% increased risk of heart disease and a 10% increased risk of stroke.
One study author, Cody Watling, a doctoral student at Oxford University, said the most common forms of sugar eaten by study participants were “preserves and sweets,” with the latter category including cookies, sugary cakes and scones. Fruit juices, sugary drinks and desserts were also common, he added.
Sugars found naturally in whole fruits and vegetables are not considered “free sugars” and were excluded from the analysis.
Watling and his team drew on data from the UK Biobank, a large-scale database of health records, which included multiple assessments of participants’ diets. The researchers analyzed the assessments to estimate the participants’ carbohydrate intake and then broke it down by type of carbohydrate to focus on free sugars.
The authors then compared that to the participants’ incidence of cardiovascular disease.
People who were at the highest risk of heart disease or stroke consumed about 95 grams of free sugar per day, or 18 percent of their daily energy intake, Watling said.
By comparison, US guidelines suggest added sugars should be no more than 10% of daily calories.
“Avoiding sugary drinks is probably the most important thing we can do,” said Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard University who was not involved in the study.
Willett added that while drinking a small glass of orange juice now and then has some health benefits, its sugar content means that “a glass of fruit juice is the same as a Coke.”
Watling said the sugar intake guidelines are based on percentages of total energy because setting a limit in grams doesn’t take into account variations in people’s dietary needs.
“Let’s say, for example, that you take someone who identifies as female and is small: their energy requirements for their body are much less than someone who is 6 [foot] 7, a man who is very tall. They will have to consume more food,” Watling said.
The Oxford researchers found a positive relationship when it came to fiber, as opposed to sugar intake: Consuming 5 grams of fiber a day was associated with a 4% lower risk of heart disease, the study suggested, although that it did not hold when the researchers controlled for participants’ body mass indices.
A wealth of previous research has also found health benefits associated with fiber consumption, as well as risks associated with high-sugar diets. The authors of the new study said their research builds on existing evidence by including the sugars in honey, syrups and fruit juices in the analysis, rather than just looking at added sugars.
However, they noted that the association they found between free sugars and stroke risk warrants further investigation.
Still, Watling said, the study shows that the types of carbohydrates people choose to eat may be more important than the total amount.
“What’s really important for overall health and well-being is that we eat carbohydrates that are rich in whole grains,” he said, while “minimizing sugary drinks as well as any type of confectionery that has added sugars.” “.
