Eating Too Much Added Sugar May Be Killing You

Photo Credit: Allison Joyce, Getty ImagesSugar not only makes you fat, it may be killing you.

Consuming too much added sugar — in regular soda, cakes, cookies and candy — increases your risk of death from heart disease, according to a new study, the largest of its type.

“The risk of cardiovascular disease death increases exponentially as you increase your consumption of added sugar,” says the study’s lead author, Quanhe Yang, a senior scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

On average, adults in the USA in 2010 consumed about 15% of their daily calories — about 300 calories a day, based on a 2,000-calorie diet — from added sugars. That’s far more than the American Heart Association’s recommendation that women consume no more than 100 calories a day from added sugars, or about 6 teaspoons of sugar; and men consume no more than 150 calories a day, or about 9 teaspoons. The World Health Organization recommends consuming less than 10% of calories from added sugars.

One can of regular soda contains about 140 calories of added sugar. That’s about 7% of the daily calories of someone eating 2,000 calories a day, Yang says.