Sinead Butler
Dec 09, 2024
unbranded - Lifestyle / VideoElephant
Ever fancy a cheeky slice of cake or biscuit?
Well, there is good news for sweet treat lovers as a new study published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health has found these sugary snacks may lower your risk of a heart attack and stroke.
Scientists at Lund University analysed the sugar intake of 70,000 Swedes through questionnaires and health outcomes for over two decades.
This data was then used to see how their sugar intake impacted their risk of being diagnosed with various cardiovascular diseases.
It turns out that eating things like chocolate, sweets and parties twice a day was linked to a 25 per cent lower risk of stroke and a 22 per cent lower chance of a heart attack.
iStockphoto by Getty Images
Participants tracked how often they drank sugary drinks such as Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and other fizzy drinks (including diet sodas) along with fruit juice and the amount of sweet toppings, and sweet treats they consumed too.
Medical records were also looked at to see if any participants were diagnosed with any health issues such as ischemic stroke, hemorrhagic stroke, heart attack, heart failure, aortic stenosis, atrial fibrillation and abdominal aortic aneurysm.
So what were the conclusions from the study?
Sugar consumption results in an increased risk of ischemic stroke and abdominal aortic aneurysm - but this risk differs depending on where the sugar comes from diet-wise.
While there's an increased risk of ischemic stroke, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, and abdominal aortic aneurysm linked with sugary drinks, that's not the case with all sugars.
iStockphoto by Getty Images
In contrast, sugar in pastries, chocolate, cake and sweets was actually linked to a reduced risk of heart-related issues - who would've thought?
And if you like to add some sweet toppings such as honey, marmalade and jam, you'll be happy to learn that these are good for reducing the odds of heart failure and aortic stenosis.
But how can sweet treats reduce this health risk?
Experts themselves don't have a complete explanation for this.
“The findings of this study indicate that not all sources of added sugar are equally harmful to health, as sugar-sweetened beverages are the primary source of added sugar associated with increased cardiovascular disease risk," the researchers said in the study.
“Possible explanations of the discrepancies between the associations for sweetened beverages and treats and toppings include liquid calories providing lower satiety and insufficient compensatory reduction of caloric intake, thus promoting overweight and obesity, which are established risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
“It should be noted that there are currently no mechanistic explanations for the negative linear associations found for treats.”
Scientists seek to investigate the causation further as to what makes sweet treats good for us as this research only explored the correlation.
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