Sugar occurs naturally in all foods that contain carbohydrates, such as fruits and vegetables, grains, and dairy. Consuming whole foods that contain natural sugar is O.K. Plant foods also have high amounts of fibre, essential minerals, and antioxidants, and dairy foods contain protein and calcium.

Since your body digests these foods slowly, the sugar in them offers a steady supply of energy to your cells. A high intake of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains also has been shown to reduce the risk of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, heart disease, and some cancers.

However, problems occur when you consume too much added sugar — that is, sugar that food manufacturers add to products to increase flavour or extend shelf life.

In our western diet, cakes, cookies and sweets tend to be full of sugar, but other top sources of added refined sugar are soft drinks, fruit drinks, flavoured yogurts, cereals, and most processed foods. But added sugar is also present in items that you may not think of as sweetened, like soups, bread, cured meats, and ketchup.

The result: we consume way too much added sugar. Adult men take in an average of 24 teaspoons of added sugar per day, according to the U.S. National Cancer Institute. That's equal to 384 calories.

Excess sugar's impact on obesity and diabetes is well documented.

In a study published in 2014 in JAMA Internal Medicine, experts found an association between a high-sugar diet and a greater risk of dying from heart disease. Over the course of the 15-year study, people who got 17% to 21% of their calories from added sugar had a 38% higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease compared with those who consumed 8% of their calories as added sugar. Basically, the higher the intake of added sugar, the higher the risk for heart disease.

How sugar actually affects heart health is not completely understood, but it appears to have several indirect connections. For instance, high amounts of sugar overload the liver. Your liver metabolizes sugar the same way as alcohol, and converts dietary carbohydrates to fat. Over time, this can lead to a greater

accumulation of fat, which may turn into fatty liver disease, a contributor to diabetes, which raises your risk for heart disease.

Consuming too much added sugar can raise blood pressure and increase chronic inflammation, both of which are pathological pathways to heart disease

The effects of added sugar intake — higher blood pressure, inflammation, weight gain, diabetes, fatty liver disease — are all linked to an increased risk for heart attack and stroke.