Dietary sugars and cardiometabolic risk: systematic review and meta-analyses of randomized controlled trials of the effects on blood pressure and lipids.

Background: Dietary sugars have been suggested as a cause of obesity, several chronic diseases, and a range of cardiometabolic risk factors, but there is no convincing evidence of a causal relation between sugars and risk factors other than body weight.

Objective: We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials that examined effects of the modification of dietary free sugars on blood pressure and lipids.

Design: Systematic searches were conducted in OVID Medline, Embase, Scopus, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, and Web of Science databases (to August 2013) to identify studies that reported intakes of free sugars and at least one lipid or blood pressure outcome.