Obesity remains one of the largest growing health-related issues across the United States.  Americans are known for loving fast food, large meal portions, and foods that contain high levels of sugar.

Now it seems these tremendously unhealthy diets not only add to the growing numbers of obese children and adults across America, but they also increase the risk of heart disease.  A recent study shows that there is a proven risk of dying from consuming too much sugar, and reveals that high sugar consumption can double a person’s chance of dying from heart disease.

Heart disease is the leading cause of death worldwide for both men and women.  In the United States, more than 600,000 people are killed every year as a result of heart related problems.  According to the recent study, people who consume about a quarter or more of their total daily calories in sugar have twice the risk of dying from heart disease than those whose intake was 7 percent.

“For those whose intake of added sugar was about 19%, their risk of dying from heart disease was about 38% higher,” the JAMA Internal Medicine noted in a statement.

This study is the first of its kind to link the amount of sugar consumption in American adults to their risk of dying from heart disease.

Although there is no specific national guideline regarding recommended sugar consumption, many health related organizations provide advice as to how much sugar we should incorporate in our daily diets.  The Institute of Medicine, for example, recommends that our daily sugar intake should be less than 25 percent of our total calories.

On the other hand, the American Heart Association recommends that men should consume less than 150 calories per day from sugar, and 100 calories per day for women.  Scientists are unsure of why sugar increases the risk of dying from heart disease, however, they believe that it ma increase factors such as blood pressure, weight gain, and raising cholesterol.