High intake of added sugar increases risk of heart disease, according to a new study released Tuesday in the April 20,2010 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study showed that eating higher amounts of added sugar increased heart disease risk factors such as blood lipid or triglycerides.

For the study, Miriam Vos, MD, MSPH, assistant professor of pediatrics, Emory School of Medicine and colleagues analyzed U.S. government nutritional data and blood lipid levels in more than 6,000 adult men and women between 1999 and 2006.

They found those who consumed more added sugar were more likely to have higher heart disease risk factors including higher levels of triglycerides and higher ratios of the blood lipid to good cholesterol.

"Just like eating a high-fat diet can increase your levels of triglycerides and high cholesterol, eating sugar can also affect those same lipids," said Vos in a statement.

High intake of sugar has been associated with more than 100 health conditions, according to a report circulated over the Internet  such as diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's disease and cancer in addition to heart disease.

In the study, the researchers found subjects on average consumed 46 teaspoons of added sugar per day.  The lowest-consuming group consumed about 3 teaspoons a day, according to a press release by Emory University.

"It would be important for long-term health for people to start looking at how much added sugar they're getting and finding ways to reduce that," said Vos.

Not all sugars are created equal though, Dr. Joe Mercola, owner of Mercola.com said in a report published on his website.

He cited Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, San Francisco as saying that fructose in sugar or high fructose corn syrup is subject to a different metabolism and people who eat high amounts of fructose are more likely to suffer all types of diseases including heart disease or cardiovascular disease.

For more information on the risk of sugar, read an early report on sugar and disease. /this_addictive_commonly_used_food_feeds_cancer_cells_2004100524/

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