Eating “free sugar”, also known as “added sugars”, may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, a new study has found.
But first, what is “free sugar”? Free sugars are those added during food processing; and occur naturally in syrups, honey, fruit juice, vegetable juice, puree, pastes and similar products where the cellular structure of the food has been broken down, according to the United States Food and Drug Administration. They do not include sugars that occur naturally in dairy products or structurally whole fruits and vegetables.
Previous studies have reported that the link between carbohydrate intake and cardiovascular disease may depend on the quality, rather than the quantity, of the carbohydrates consumed, according to the new study published Monday in the journal BMC Medicine. To test this theory, the authors behind the latest study evaluated diet and health data from more than 110,000 people who participated in the UK Biobank, a cohort study that collected data between 2006 and 2010 from more than 503,000 UK-based adults.
People included in the new study participated in two to five 24-hour online dietary assessments, recording their food and beverage intake several times in each 24-hour period. After more than 9 years of follow-up, the researchers found that total carbohydrate intake was not associated with cardiovascular disease. But when they analyzed how the results differed depending on the types and sources of carbohydrates eaten, they found that higher free sugar intake was associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease and a larger waist circumference.