This “Hidden Sugar” Causes High Blood Pressure And Heart AttackWe’ve all been warned time and again that too much sugar in the diet affects your health. It leads to conditions like type 2 diabetes, obesity, heart attack and stroke – just to name a few.

But even if you make the utmost attempt to eat healthy, you may not be aware of all the “hidden sugar” sneaked into your food.

And just one little bite of these sneaky food, can increase your risk of heart attack by a scary 18-50%.

The hidden sugar we’re talking about is in the form of ‘added sugar’. This when consumed regularly as a part of the diet increase the risk of heart disease by as much as 20 percent!

It is a common practice for manufacturers to add sugar in different forms to improve flavor, appearance and texture. The tough part is that people might not even be able to guess that they’re consuming a potential ‘sugar bomb’.

Even those who are aware of added sugar will not really know how much it is in real terms. Here’s an example: A can of soda (we all know that’s the worst) has about 44 grams of sugar. A teaspoon holds about 4 grams of sugar. Do the math and you’ll realize that there are 11 teaspoons of sugar in a can and absolutely nothing else in terms of nutritional value!

Grown up persons should not consume more than 20 – 36 grams of sugar per day and for children, the limit should be 12 grams per day.

The common culprits are beverages, cakes, candy, ice cream, pies and fruit drinks. Maybe this might not be so surprising, but read on…

But added sugar is also found in big doses in savory stuff like ketchup and salad dressings. So the health benefits of the big salad you were so proud of having for lunch may be completely sabotaged.

A flavored yogurt contributes a whopping 7 – 8 teaspoons of sugar while a “healthy-choice” granola bar can have up to 4 teaspoons (16 grams)!

Quanhe Yang and his team of researchers in Center for Disease Control analyzed national health survey data and found out that added sugar made up 14.9 percent of daily calories in American diet between 2005 and 2010. Then they compared this data with the incidence of deaths related to heart disease. The findings were very significant.

The risk of heart-related death increases 18 percent for those who received the average 15 percent of daily calories from added sugar, compared to diets containing little to no added sugar.

The risk is even higher, about 38 percent increase in incidence of heart attacks, in people who got 17 to 21 percent of their calories from added sugar. And it is more than doubled in those who got more than 21 percent of calories from added sugar.

How do you save yourself from the dangers of added sugar? Read labels carefully and find out how much sugar is added in every product and make meaningful choices.

For sweets, go for fruits, which have fiber and other nutrients that compensate the sugar.

But denying yourself of all sugar is almost impossible in the world we live in. A much easier way to avoid high blood pressure and heart attack are simple blood pressure exercises. These simple exercises have been proven to help drop blood pressure below 120/80 – starting today. Test these easy exercises for yourself here…

Need to lose weight? Here is the easy, breezy way to do so without diet…