THE TOP 10 MOST IMPORTANT NUTRITION AND LIFESTYLE RESEARCH ARTICLES OF 2014
Over the past year I’ve shared with you over seventy postings containing the most important research findings reported in the areas of nutrition, natural treatments, and lifestyle factors that we in Integrative Medicine believe are the best treatments now and for the future.
Today I present the winner, the single most important article of the year. The title of this blog says it all-
Added Sugar Has A Greater Role Than Salt in High Blood Pressure, Heart Disease Risk
As I’ve state with our daily countdown of the top ten, the most important criteria that I considered for inclusion in the list was the study’s importance in changing our understanding or treatment approach to any disease. Today’s pick in conjunction with our #2 pick presented yesterday is about crucial evidence that shows that we need to change the longstanding dietary advice that medicine and public health officials have been telling the public for many years. They have been telling us to avoid eating saturated fat like eggs, while the evidence shows that eating too much sugar and processed carbohydrate is the more important factor in how heart disease is promoted by eating the typical American diet. Also eating a low salt diet is not the best advice for everyone. People will be very surprised to learn that sugar is more of a problem than salt, for promoting the development of high blood pressure. These most important findings of 2014 , should be a wake-up call, informing us that us we need to change the advice given to the public for many years now, about preventing cardiovascular disease. This is the single most important message that we should take from the nutritional research published in 2014. Heart disease is our number one killer and people have not been advised correctly about how to prevent it. It’s time for everyone to understand, DON’T EAT THE SUGARS IN PROCESSED FOODS ! They are bad for you.
And finally, HERE’S #1 !
Added Sugar Has A Greater Role Than Salt in High Blood Pressure, Heart Disease Risk
The British online medical journal Open Heart has just reported that an analysis of all current available evidence shows that we need to drastically change the dietary advice that Americans and Europeans are given regarding how to prevent heart disease. There is more and more accumulating evidence that eating fat and salt are not the problems that we have been told they are. Eating sugar added to processed foods is the problem.
As per the analysis presented in this study, sugars which are added to processed foods are likely to play a greater role in causing high blood pressure and heart disease, than added salt. People whose dietary intake of added sugar is greater than 25% of their total daily calories have fully three times the risk of heart and cardiovascular disease risk compared to people whose sugar intake is low.
Cutting salt intake has been the standard dietary approach to lower high blood pressure, but that advice is “debatable,” according to the authors of the study.They advocate that we should now be emphasizing the avoidance of added sugars, especially high fructose corn syrup added to processed foods.
The article states, “Sugar may be much more meaningfully related to blood pressure than sodium, as suggested by a greater magnitude of effect with dietary manipulation. Compelling evidence from basic science, population studies, and clinical trials implicates sugars, and particularly the monosaccharide fructose, as playing a major role in the development of hypertension”. The research regarding high fructose corn syrup, the sweetener in processed foods is clearly worrisome. The data shows that a daily intake of more than 74 g of fructose is associated with a 77% increased risk of blood pressure above 160/100 mm Hg. Excess intake of added sugars has also been strongly associates with elevated blood cholesterol and other researched blood fats, as reported here in the blog post, New Study Proves that Eating Saturated Fat Does Not Increase Fats in the Blood (Dec 3, 2014).
It is important to note that the naturally-occurring fructose and other sugars found in fruits are not harmful and should be an important part of a heart healthy diet.
For more of the latest in nutritional/ lifestyle research check all of my blog posts at www.drsobo.com/blog
For the best care in Integrative Medicine call Henry C. Sobo, M.D., at 203-348-8805 or write us at [email protected]