Eating a lot of sugary foods and drinks—especially those with fructose like soda and candy—might triple your chance of dying from heart disease, because they can mess up your metabolism and lead to fat buildup in the liver and other problems.

Eating a lot of sugary foods and drinks—especially those with fructose like table sugar or high-fructose corn syrup—may triple your chance of dying from heart disease.

Even though people are eating less cholesterol, more people are dying from heart disease — so maybe sugar, especially fructose, is to blame instead.

If you swap out foods high in saturated fats (like butter or cheese) for sugary snacks and drinks, it might mess up your blood fats in a bad way—raising triglycerides, lowering good cholesterol, and raising total cholesterol—which could make your heart more at risk.

Eating normal amounts of table sugar or corn syrup in your food and drinks doesn’t make you more likely to get overweight, diabetes, or heart disease than eating the same number of calories from other carbs like bread or pasta.

Eating more sugar—like 50 grams extra a day—seems to go hand in hand with a higher chance of getting heart disease, which might mean sugary foods are part of why some diets lead to heart problems.