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

Back when people were told to eat less fat and more carbs, sugar intake went up—and so did heart disease and obesity. Now scientists are wondering if sugar, not fat, might be the real problem.

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.

Eating too much fructose, like the sugar in soda and sweet snacks, makes your liver create more fat, which raises bad fats in your blood and causes body-wide inflammation, making heart disease more likely.

Eating too much fructose over a long time can mess up how your liver responds to insulin, making your body produce more insulin, cause body-wide inflammation, and raise fat levels in your blood—all of which raise your risk of heart disease.