In an article published in the JAMA Internal Medicine journal, they concluded that a diet high in sugar increases your risk of dying from heart disease even without being overweight. The Harvard Letter states, “Over the course of the 15-year study, participants who took in 25% or more of their daily calories as sugar were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease as those whose diets included less than 10% added sugar. Overall, 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).” This is pretty astounding research. The overconsumption of sugar is a major problem for many people. Certainly, risks like this, should be a wake up call.

The research concludes with, “Most US adults consume more added sugar than is recommended for a healthy diet. We observed a significant relationship between added sugar consumption and increased risk for CVD mortality.”

Click here to read from The Harvard Letter, and click here to read from the Jama Internal Medicine journal.