Eating foods that spike your blood sugar quickly might be linked to a higher risk of heart failure in the first few years, but that link seems to fade over time—maybe because your body adjusts or doctors catch problems earlier.

Eating foods that raise blood sugar quickly doesn’t seem to increase the risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older Swedish women, based on a study that found no clear link between the two.

Eating foods that spike your blood sugar quickly might slightly raise your risk of heart disease—about 4% more for every 5-point increase in how fast the food raises blood sugar—but only if scientists look at it one specific way, not another.

In older Swedish women, eating lots of foods that spike blood sugar might be linked to more heart failure hospitalizations or deaths, but the evidence isn’t strong enough to be sure.

Eating foods that spike your blood sugar quickly might slightly raise your risk of heart disease, but it doesn’t seem to affect stroke risk at all—so it might not be the main culprit, and something else like overall sugar intake could be more important.

Eating foods that spike your blood sugar quickly might slightly raise your risk of heart disease, but only if you look at the numbers in a certain way—when you group people into categories, the link disappears.