Much like sodium, excessive sugar consumption can contribute to rising blood pressure. Researchers have long suspected a connection between blood sugar and hypertension, or high blood pressure, and emerging research appears to confirm the link. Many diabetics also have hypertension, a chronic disease in the United States, affecting about 33 percent of the population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hypertension puts you at greater risk for having a stroke, heart attack, eye problems or other serious ailments.
Types of Sugar
By any other name, sugar is still sugar. Food manufacturers sometimes use terms like fructose, sucrose, high-fructose corn syrup or evaporated cane syrup. All sugars are carbohydrates, which can raise your blood sugar level, leading in turn to diabetes and hypertension. Americans consume about 24 ounces of soda each day, according to an NPR report. In an interview with "The New York Times Magazine," Dr. Robert Lustig, an expert in childhood obesity at the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine, cited sugar as the number one reason for high rates of obesity, diabetes and hypertension in America.
Research
Decreasing your sugar intake can significantly lower your blood pressure, according to research published in the June 2010 issue of "Circulation." In the article, Dr. Liwei Chen writes that just one serving of a sugary drink can increase your systolic blood pressure by 1.6 mm Hg and your diastolic pressure by 0.8 mm. If your blood pressure reading is 120/80, the top number is your systolic pressure, and the bottom number is your diastolic pressure. Consuming too much sugar also increases the amount of uric acid in your blood. According to Dr. Chen, uric acid can reduce the amount of nitric oxide in your body, a chemical that helps lower blood pressure.
Obesity
Excessive sugar consumption can cause obesity, a risk factor for high blood pressure. In the August 2008 issue of "Aging Cell," Danielle A. Skorupa wrote that flies fed a high sugar diet not only became obese, but the link between sugar and obesity strengthened as the flies aged. The flies also consumed more after eating high-carbohydrate meals. When fed a moderate-calorie diet, the flies who had previously consumed a high-sugar diet remained obese. Further research is need to understand the complex relationship between sugar and high blood pressure in humans. About 33 percent of Americans are obese, according to the Skorupa study, a number that matches the CDC statistic on the number of Americans affected by hypertension.
Guidelines
Limit your daily intake of sugar, refined grains and fat. In "Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2010," the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advise that eating too much sugar can increase your risk for chronic disease. According to these guidelines, added sugars comprise 16 percent of the daily American diet, and most of those calories come from sugary drinks and desserts. Reducing that percentage would eliminate calories without affecting nutritional intake.
References
- American Diabetes Association: Complications
- Centers for Disease Control; High Blood Pressure; July 2011
- NPR; It's Not Just Salt: Sugar Boosts Blood Pressure, Too; Richard Knox; May 2010
- "The New York Times Magazine"; Is Sugar Toxic?; Gary Taubes; April 2011
- "Circulation"; Reducing Consumption of Sugar-Sweetened Beverages Is Associated With Reduced Blood Pressure; Liwei Chen, M.D., et al.; June 2010
