Teens whose diets include lots of sugary drinks and foods show physical signs that they are at increased risk for heart disease as adults, researchers from Emory University report.
Among 2,157 teens who took part in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the average amount of added sugar eaten in a day was 119 grams (476 calories), which was 21.4 percent of all the calories these teens consumed daily, the researchers noted.
"We need to be aware of sugar consumption," said lead researcher and postdoctoral fellow Jean Welsh.
"It's a significant contributor of calories to our diet and there are these associations that may prove to be very negative," she said. "Sugar-sweetened soft drinks and sodas are the major contributor of added sugar and are a major source of calories without other important nutrients."
Awareness of the negative effects of added sugar may help people, particularly teens, cut down on the amount of sugar they consume, Welsh added.
Welsh's team found that teens who consumed the most added sugar had 9 percent higher LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels, and 10 percent higher triglyceride levels (another type of blood fat), compared with those who consumed the least added sugar. Teens who took in the highest amount of added sugar also had lower levels of HDL ("good") cholesterol than those who consumed the least amount of added sugar.
In addition, teens who consumed the highest amount of added sugar showed signs of insulin resistance, which can lead to diabetes and its associated risk of heart disease, the researchers found.
Commenting on the study, Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, said that "this study does not prove that dietary sugar is a cardiac risk factor in this population, but it strongly suggests it."
The paper has three important messages, he said. First, dietary sugar intake in a representative population of teenagers is nearly double the recommended level.
Second, the higher the intake of sugar, the greater the signs of cardiac risk, including elevated LDL ("bad") cholesterol and low HDL ("good") cholesterol. Third, the apparent harms of excess sugar are greater in overweight than in lean adolescents.
"Sugar is by no means the sole dietary threat to the health of adolescents, or adults," Katz said. "But we now have evidence it certainly counts among the important threats to both. Reducing sugar intake by adolescents, to prevent them becoming adults with diabetes or heart disease, is a legitimate priority in public health nutrition," he said.
SOURCES: Jean Welsh, M.P.H., Ph.D., R.N., postdoctoral fellow, Emory University, Atlanta; David L. Katz, M.D., M.P.H., director, Prevention Research Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Conn.; Jan. 10, 2011, Circulation, online
Last Updated: Jan. 10, 2011
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