One of the first posts I ever wrote here was all about how bad sugar is for your heart, and about the sneaky ways the sugar industry was trying to hide this.

They still do.

The fact is, if you’re getting more than 25 percent of your daily calories from sugar, you’re a heart attack waiting to happen.

But more recent research is telling us that what really matters is the source of that sugar.

Astonishingly, we’re learning that having a sweet treat once in a while may be better for you than having no sugar at all!

Not all sugar is created equal

Six scientists at Lund University in Sweden set out to understand how sugar consumption affects cardiovascular disease risk, and whether consuming different kinds of sugar changes those risks.

To do this, they studied 69,705 people. After excluding other factors that could cause heart disease, they looked at three sources of the sugar these people consumed: toppings like honey, treats like pastries, and sweetened beverages like fizzy drinks.

The participants were monitored until they died or were diagnosed with one of the cardiovascular diseases. The follow-up period ended in 2019.

During this period, 25,739 participants were diagnosed with cardiovascular disease.  

The scientists then used this data to break down how different types of sugar intake affected the risk of different cardiovascular diseases.  

An occasional treat may be good for you

The study showed that sweetened drinks are worse for your health than any other form of sugar. They significantly increased the risk of ischemic stroke, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and abdominal aortic aneurysm.

However, eating an occasional sweet treat was associated with better outcomes than eating no treats at all.

“This might reflect underlying dietary behaviors — individuals consuming very little sugar might have very restrictive diets or might be limiting sugar due to pre-existing health conditions,” suggested Suzanne Janzi, corresponding author of the study.

In other words, people who eat little sugar may already be eating healthier diets because they have a health condition that necessitates this.

How to avoid the sugar trap

Adults and young adults in the U.S. consume on average about 17 teaspoons of added sugar every day — more than 2 to 3 times the recommended daily allowance for men and women respectively.

Since sweetened fizzy drinks, like sodas, contain an average of 9 grams of added sugar, it’s easy to see why it’s so easy to consume way too much.

Avoiding cardiovascular disease should be incentive enough to cut down on the amount of sugar you consume, and allow yourself the occasional treat.

Of course, start by excluding the worst offender — sweetened drinks.

Then, work on eating fewer of the foods you don’t consider sweets or treats, yet can contain high amounts of added sugars (or problematic non-nutritive sweeteners), like condiments and sauces, protein bars, yogurt, milk and coffee creamers, breakfast cereals and instant oats and nut butters.

I’d rather eat much less of these foods to enjoy a piece of cake, a homemade cookie or a chocolate bar!

The American Heart Association has put together a few helpful tips for cutting down on sugar. And the first shouldn’t surprise you…

1. Swap out sweetened drinks for water. Try adding squeezing a little fresh lemon to taste.
2. Cut the use of table sugar in half. We’re all guilty of adding a spoonful or two to cereals and beverages like tea and coffee. Cut your usual amount by half for a few days and keep making small adjustments to add less and less.
3. Become a label reader. Choose products with the lowest amounts of added sugars. Dairy and fruit products will contain some natural sugars (avoid fruit packaged in syrup!). Added sugars can be identified in the ingredients list.
4. Halve the sugar in recipes or try swaps, like no-sugar-added applesauce.
5. Spice things up. Try ginger, allspice, cinnamon and nutmeg to tantalize the tastebuds.

Sources:

Sugary drinks significantly raise cardiovascular disease risk, but occasional sweet treats don’t, scientists find —Eureka Alert

Added sugar intake and its associations with incidence of seven different cardiovascular diseases in 69,705 Swedish men and women — Frontiers in Public Health

An occasional treat could be better for your heart than no added sugar at all — Science Alert