Sugar Even Increases CVD Risk in Healthy Adults

Otherwise healthy adults who consume high levels of sugar are at increased risk of cardiovascular disease due to increased levels of fat in the blood and liver, according to the results of a recent study.

Although dietary sugar is linked to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and dyslipidemia, whether NAFLD influences the effect of sugar on plasma lipoproteins is unknown.
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In a recent study, researchers followed 11 men with NAFLD and 14 controls who were randomly assigned to either a diet high or low in sugar for 12 weeks. Using isotope trace-labelling, the researchers measured fasting plasma lipid and lipoprotein kinetic.

Overall, significant differences in the production and catabolic rates of very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) subclasses were observed between men with NAFLD and controls in response to the high and low sugar diets.  Men with NAFLD had higher plasma concentrations of VLDL1-triacylglycerol (TAG) after the high and low sugar diets, a lower VLDL1-TAG fractional catabolic rate after the high sugar diet, and a higher VLDL1-TAG production rate after the low sugar diet, compared with controls.

“These dietary effects on VLDL subclass kinetics could be explained, in part, by differences in the contribution of fatty acids from intra-hepatic stores, and de novo lipogenesis. This study provides new evidence that liver fat accumulation leads to a differential partitioning of hepatic TAG into large and small VLDL subclasses, in response to high and low intakes of sugars,” the researchers concluded.

—Michael Potts

Reference:

Umpleby AM, Shojaee-Moradie F, Fielding B, et al. Impact of liver fat on the differential partitioning of hepatic triacylglycerold into VLDL subclasses on high and low sugar diets [published online September 18, 2017]. Clin Sci. doi: 10.1042/CS20171208.