The worst carbohydrate to consume if you are worried about your heart health It is a carbohydrate that you consume a lot and that can quickly raise your blood sugar level. Over time, high blood sugar levels can lead to type 2 diabetes and hardening of the blood vessels, known as atherosclerosis.
So if you’re looking for the poster child of worst carbs for the heart, it has to be sugary drinks. Liquid sugar is quickly and easily ingested and does not require much work to digest.
“Sodas and other sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) are simple carbohydrates that are released into the bloodstream faster than other foods and cause a dramatic spike in blood sugar,” explains Eatthis.com medical board member and registered dietitian Julie UptonMS, RD, CSSD. “For that reason, I would say that soda is the worst carbohydrate for heart health. There are studies that also show that people who drink sugary drinks have higher triglycerides and a higher risk of heart disease.”
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One such study published in 2020 in the Journal of the American Heart Association specifically looked at the association between the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and the cholesterol profiles of more than 6,000 people who were related to the original participants of the famous Framingham Heart Study.
In a four-year follow-up, researchers found that people who drank one or more 12-ounce servings of SSB had lower levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL), the so-called “good cholesterol,” and increased harmful triglycerides compared to people who drank less than one serving of SSB per month.
But what if I don’t drink sweet drinks?
Sugary desserts, candies, fruit juice concentrates, and any foods made with table sugar, corn sweeteners, and syrup sugar molecules that end in “ose,” such as dextrose, fructose, glucose, lactose, maltose, and sucrose, will have similar negative effects on the body. .
“Excess added sugars contribute to obesity, diabetes, as well as arterial inflammation, which are linked to cardiovascular disease,” says registered dietitian katherine brookingMS, DRco-founder with Upton of Appetite for Health. Brooking cites a case of 15 years JAMA Internal Medicine to study, which showed that people who consumed 17% to 21% of their calories from added sugars had a 38% increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared to people who consumed only 8% of their daily calories from of added sugars. Analyzing data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), researchers showed that about 10% of American adults consumed 25% or more of calories from added sugar between 2005 and 2010, far more than recommended for a healthy diet.
learn more by reading 4 Drinking Habits That Secretly Increase Blood Sugar.
jeff csatari
Jeff Csatari, a contributing writer for Eat This, Not That!, is responsible for editing books and magazines for Galvanized Media and advising journalism students through the Zinczenko Center for New Media at Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. read more
