15 Feb 2023 • Consuming foods that have a lot of “free sugars” significantly raised the risk of heart disease and stroke, according to researchers from the University of Oxford. It’s not necessarily the amount of sugar you eat that can hurt your heart, it’s the kind of sugar you eat that can lead to heart disease, the study suggests.

What are free sugars? These are all monosaccharides and disaccharides added to foods by the manufacturer, cook or consumer, plus sugars naturally present in honey, syrups, and unsweetened fruit juices. Whereas, non-free sugars are mostly naturally occurring in fruit, vegetables, and dairy products)

Researchers examined data for 110,497 people from the United Kingdom to determine how diet impacted the risk of heart disease and stroke over 9 years. People in the study ranged in age from 37 to 73 years old. The highest risk of heart disease was among people who ate around 95 grams of free sugar per day, or 18% of their daily calories.

Free sugar intake was associated with higher risks of total CVD and CVD subtypes, particularly total stroke, which supports the global dietary recommendation to consume less than 5% of total energy from free sugars. Free sugar intake was positively associated with triglycerides within all lipoprotein subclasses, which explains the observed higher risk of IHD. Source: BMC Medicine| Read full story