The Danger of Added Sugar

Dennis Thompson, HealthDay reporter, informs that the doctors consider sugar to be bad for health, as it enhances fat and can cause diabetes. Moreover, based on their studies, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention assure that more sugar may endanger one’s health causing heart disease that can bring to death.

Researchers have found that the worse thing is that the Americans use a lot of added sugar in their food, thus enhancing the risk of decreases by 20 percent.

Quanhe Yang, CDC researcher and study lead author, in his turn, confirms the fact that using too much added sugar in food can bring to heart diseases that in its turn may bring to death.         

Laura Schmidt, the author of the accompanying journal commentary, in the February 3rd issue of JAMA Internal Medicine journal, informs that those who use more added sugar face the risk of dying from heart disease. In addition, those who use even more added sugar the risk of cardiovascular disease is even higher.   

      

The researchers assure that the added sugar is not seen in the food. It just gives the food some flavor and forms part of ingredients. Hence, the consumers do not even acknowledge they take that much added sugar through their food. Yang is pretty sure that consumers can endanger their health if they take soda almost every day, since it contains 9 teaspoons of sugar in it.

Schmidt, a professor of health policy at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, states that people do not even acknowledge that one can of soda a day is rather risky than eating any food containing about 2000 calories.

Sugar is also is included in the ingredients of such food as cookies, sweets, drinks, and dairy desserts. It is also a part of salad dressings, bread, and, etc. A lot of added sugar can be found in yogurt, as much as it is in candy.  

As compared to the previous research, which studied the danger of added sugar in beverages, the new one is more focused on its influence on the death caused by the heart diseases.

There are lots of different recommendations about the quantity of sugar in food, for example, the Institute of Medicine recommends 25 percent, the World Health Organization less than 10 percent, and the American Heart Association differentiates less than 100 for women and 150 for men. It should be noted that there is no precise general recommendation in this regard. 

The data that was used to study the added sugar usage is based on health survey data. The findings are as follows: from 2005 to 2010 American’s food included 14.9 percent sugar, from 1988 to 1994 it was 15.7 percent, and from 1999 to 2004 16.8 percent. 

Later, the researchers tried to compare the added sugar consumption results with the death results.  It was found that the higher the percentage of using added sugar, the greater is the dying because of health disease, Yang confirms.

However, even if the studies have revealed the fact that heavy consumers of added sugar are prone to heart disease death, the cause-and-effect relationship has not been proven yet.

Hence, the Corn Refiners Association, the author of fructose, does not have any statements regarding the studies in this regard. Schmidt is sure that sugar usage puts the hormone system in disorder thus enhancing the risk of heart attack. Rachel Johnson, a nutrition professor at the University of Vermont and chairwoman of the American Heart Association Nutrition Committee, in her turn, states that fruit has less affect on the body, despite all the fiber and nutrients it has in it. 

Johnson advises to  study carefully the Nutrition Facts and the ingredients before using the food. Special attention should be given to ending “–ose”, such as “sucrose” and all kinds of syrups, such as brown rice syrup, which is pure sugar.

More information on heart-healthy diet can be found in American Heart Association.