Do sugary foods hurt your heart?
Dietary Glycemic Index, Dietary Glycemic Load, and Incidence of Heart Failure Events: A Prospective Study of Middle-Aged and Elderly Women
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Higher glycemic load showed a 30% increased risk, but it wasn’t statistically significant — and higher GI showed no link at all.
Most prior research links high-GI/GL diets to heart disease, so a null result for heart failure — especially in a large, long-term study — contradicts popular assumptions.
Practical Takeaways
Don’t panic about occasional sugary foods — this study suggests they’re not clearly linked to heart failure in older women.
Not medical advice. For informational purposes only. Always consult a healthcare professional. Terms
Surprising Findings
Higher glycemic load showed a 30% increased risk, but it wasn’t statistically significant — and higher GI showed no link at all.
Most prior research links high-GI/GL diets to heart disease, so a null result for heart failure — especially in a large, long-term study — contradicts popular assumptions.
Practical Takeaways
Don’t panic about occasional sugary foods — this study suggests they’re not clearly linked to heart failure in older women.
Publication
Journal
Journal of the American College of Nutrition
Year
2010
Authors
E. Levitan, M. Mittleman, A. Wolk
Related Content
Claims (6)
Eating a lot of sugary and refined carbs like white bread and soda may raise a woman’s chance of getting heart disease by almost double, even if she doesn’t have other common risk factors like high blood pressure or smoking.
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 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.
For middle-aged and older Swedish women, eating foods that raise blood sugar quickly doesn’t seem to affect heart failure risk any more for overweight women than for women who are normal weight — the risk is about the same in both groups.
Eating more fiber doesn’t change whether foods that spike your blood sugar increase your risk of heart failure in middle-aged and older Swedish women.