Sugar and Hypertension

Added sugar may be linked to an increased risk of developing hypertension.
The Los Angeles Times (7/1, Kaplan) "Booster Shots" blog reported that added sugar may be linked to an increased risk of developing hypertension, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology. Investigators "from the University of Colorado Denver checked to see whether added sugar intake was linked to blood pressure among the thousands of representative Americans who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey between 2003 and 2006." The researchers, "by comparing the diets and systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) of all the volunteers...found that those who ate and drank more fructose from added sugars (as opposed to healthy sources like fresh fruit) had higher blood pressure than those who didn't."
MedPage Today (7/1, Neale) reported that "there are several possible mechanisms that might explain the positive association between fructose and blood pressure, the authors wrote, 'including stimulation of uric acid, inhibition of [the] endothelial nitric oxide synthase system, and stimulation of the sympathetic nervous system, or by directly increasing sodium absorption in the gut.'"
CNN /Health.com (7/2, Gardner) reports that "one important drawback of the study is that the participants reported their own diets based on memory, which makes the estimates of fructose intake less accurate."