Sugar is essential for heart health, until…

A little bit of sugar is essential for a healthy body.

Does that sound strange? It’s true. We wouldn’t have survived as a species without sugar.

Our ancestors relied on sugar-rich ripe fruits in order to survive. It gave them tremendous energy, heart-healthy antioxidant nutrients, and helped them with fat storage, which can mean the difference between living and dying during lean times.

Today, however, we’re bombarded with processed sugar. It’s right out in the open, and hidden in places we would never suspect.

And research shows us that it’s no wonder heart disease is a top killer.

One study from the University of Otago in New Zealand on the effects of sugar shows that the kind we’re fed warps heart function and harms the capacity of your cardiovascular system. This review of other studies uncovered a range of data that shows sugar increases your blood pressure. It also leads to a harmful cholesterol imbalance.

Johns Hopkins University found that too much sugar throws off basic heart rhythm itself.

University of Otago researcher Lisa Te Morenga reports that the only studies that show sugar doesn’t hurt the heart are those founded by food companies trying to show that sugar is safe to eat.

In going over the studies of sugar, Te Morenga found that when the sugar industry funded research, the experiments were slanted to downplay sugar’s effects: “… by excluding the trials funded by the food/sugar industry, we found [even] larger effects of sugar on lipids and blood pressure.”

Maybe the best advice is that if you want a sweet treat, go back to the eating habits of our ancestors, who had little or no heart disease. That is, stick with ripe fruits for the sugar you need.

It doesn’t have to be the same old oranges and cherries. Specialty stores and health food stores have dozens of exotic and sweet fruits loaded with incredible amounts of nutrients and especially the plant antioxidants called polyphenols. Or you could go for a North American powerhouse, the aronia berry. They have more antioxidant strength than dark chocolate, flax, olives, or blueberries. Red aronia berries are sweeter than black (which look like blueberries) but the black have higher antioxidant power.