People with elevated blood sugar levels may have a 30–50% higher risk of developing heart disease, even if their blood sugar levels are below the diabetes threshold. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images Researchers found that people with elevated blood sugar levels have a 30–50% increased risk of developing heart disease, even if their blood sugar […]
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Young adults aren’t behaving like their parents: They’re not drinking as much, they’re facing more mental health challenges, and they’re living with their parents longer. On top of that, computer games and social media have become a sort of stand-in for physical relationships. All that means young Californians aren’t having as much sex. The number […]
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People with elevated blood sugar levels may have a 30–50% higher risk of developing heart disease, even if their blood sugar levels are below the diabetes threshold. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images Researchers found that people with elevated blood sugar levels have a 30–50% increased risk of developing heart disease, even if their blood sugar […]
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Young adults aren’t behaving like their parents: They’re not drinking as much, they’re facing more mental health challenges, and they’re living with their parents longer. On top of that, computer games and social media have become a sort of stand-in for physical relationships. All that means young Californians aren’t having as much sex. The number […]
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People with elevated blood sugar levels may have a 30–50% higher risk of developing heart disease, even if their blood sugar levels are below the diabetes threshold. CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images
Researchers found that people with elevated blood sugar levels have a 30–50% increased risk of developing heart disease, even if their blood sugar levels are below the threshold for diabetes.
The findings show that males were more likely to be prescribed preventive antihypertensive and statin therapies than females, revealing a “prescribing gap.”
Healthy blood sugar levels are important for health and energy, and certain factors may spike blood sugar, even when a person does not have diabetes.
Every person needs a certain amount of sugar in their blood to stay healthy and energized.
A person’s blood sugar levels will fluctuate throughout the day depending on what they eat and is also impacted by their age and overall health.
Researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and University College London have found both men and women with raised blood sugar levels have a 30–50% increased risk for developing cardiovascular disease, even if their blood sugar levels are below the threshold for diabetes.
Additionally, researchers reported a potential disparity between the amount of preventive antihypertensive and statin medications prescribed to males and females, suggesting a potential “prescribing gap.”
How high blood sugar may be linked to heart disease
Researchers analyzed data from the UK Biobank of more than 427,000 UK residents for the study.
About 54% of participants were females and about 46% were males. All participants had different blood sugar levels including:
healthy
prediabetic
diabetic
Dr. Christopher Rentsch, PhD, assistant professor of epidemiology at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and lead author of this study explained to Medical News Today:
“We were interested to explore which risk factors drive known sex differences in the risk of heart disease between men and women with diabetes, and whether men or women with moderately elevated blood sugar below the threshold for diabetes are also at increased risk of heart disease.”
Upon analysis and after adjusting for age, the research team found both men and women with moderately elevated blood sugar levels below the threshold for diabetes were at increased risk for any type of cardiovascular disease.
“The finding that moderately elevated blood sugar below the diabetes threshold was associated with (an) increased risk of heart disease was not entirely surprising based on prior research in this area. For example, there is a recognized state of ‘prediabetes’ where blood sugar is elevated but not yet meeting the criteria for a diabetes diagnosis. Prediabetes is known to increase the risk of progressing to diabetes and potentially developing heart disease. Key novel contributions of our work were quantifying the risk of heart disease across a full range of blood sugar levels for both men and women and demonstrating these associations were largely explained by modifiable factors.”
What is considered high blood sugar?
Sometimes a person’s blood sugar, also known as blood glucose, can become too high. Certain factors may cause a person’s blood sugar to spike, even if they do not have diabetes. These may include:
unhealthy diet
lack of exercise
insufficient sleep
stress from illness
There are a few different tests used to determine a person’s blood sugar levels.
One of those tests is the fasting blood sugar test, where a person’s levels are checked when they have not eaten. A fasting glucose reading of 99 mg/dL or below is considered healthy.
Another commonly used test is the A1C test, which measures a person’s average blood sugar levels over two to three months. An A1C test reading of 5.7% or below is considered healthy.
When a person’s blood sugar levels test in ranges above normal, it is considered high blood sugar, medically known as hyperglycemia. High blood sugar can signal either prediabetes or diabetes.
Symptoms of high blood sugar include:
excessive thirst
frequent need to urinate
extreme hunger
unexplained weight loss
tiredness
blurred vision
headaches
mood changes
If left untreated, high blood sugar levels can lead to a variety of health issues, including:
nerve damage
chronic kidney disease
vision issues
foot ulcers
erectile dysfunction (ED)
skin problems
Previous research has also linked high blood sugar levels to an increased risk for certain heart conditions, including stroke and high blood pressure.
Talk with your doctor if you’re concerned about your blood sugar levels and heart disease risk.
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Young adults aren’t behaving like their parents: They’re not drinking as much, they’re facing more mental health challenges, and they’re living with their parents longer. On top of that, computer games and social media have become a sort of stand-in for physical relationships.
All that means young Californians aren’t having as much sex.
The number of young adults going without sex was rising even before covid made dating harder and riskier. In 2011, about 22% of Californians ages 18 to 30 reported having no sexual partners in the prior 12 months. That crept up to 29% in 2019, and it jumped to 38% in 2021, according to the latest figures from UCLA’s California Health Interview Survey.
Other age groups in California also reported an increase in abstinence, but the trend was not nearly as pronounced.
“Everything happens later,” said San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge, author of “Generations: The Real Differences Between Gen Z, Millennials, Gen X, Boomers, and Silents—and What They Mean for America’s Future.” She said the numbers reflect how young adults increasingly delay major life events, such as moving out of their parents’ homes and forging long-term romantic relationships.
Singles saw the most dramatic change.
It has long been the case that single people are more likely to report having no sex than married or cohabiting people. But as young adults delay marriage, the gap has widened.
Young adults may be putting off long-term relationships “due to their increasingly economically precarious status or stress related to completing education and looking for jobs,” said Lei Lei, a sociology professor at Rutgers who recently co-authored a paper that examined why fewer young adults are having sex. “They are busy with other domains of life.” Researchers also noted that hundreds of thousands of young adults identify as asexual.
Rising computer use may play a role in the trend. Young adults increasingly form relationships through playing video games with people they do not physically meet, Lei said. These distant relationships sometimes interfere with the formation of sexual relationships.
A Pew Research Center report from 2015 found equal numbers of men and women played video games but that young adult men were more than three times as likely as young adult women to identify as serious “gamers.”
Young adults also have access to endless amounts of free pornography online, a departure from the porn magazines, videotapes, and DVDs many of their parents bought. Much of the most popular online porn features violence or coercion, which gives some young adults a flawed perspective on sex and turns others off it entirely, said Debby Herbenick, director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at Indiana University Bloomington’s School of Public Health.
“Those kinds of behaviors are really, really normalized among young people,” she said, referring to rough sex.
Sex also has a correlation with income. Young adults who make less money were more likely to go without sex than peers making more.
Much recent discourse about lack of sex among young adults has revolved around so-called incels, young men who contend — often in vile, misogynistic terms — that dating apps like Tinder make it easier for women to find conventionally attractive, wealthy, or otherwise high-status men and ignore everyone else.
Erin Tillman, a certified sex educator and executive director of the nonprofit Sex-Positive Los Angeles, said it makes her sad when she hears men blame women for not wanting to have sex with them. She said those men could likely change their perspective and find intimacy.
“They hold the cards in terms of making themselves better,” she said.
The sexless trend has the potential to lower rates of unplanned pregnancy. And it could also reduce the spread of sexually transmitted infections, though that has not yet happened.
Herbenick does worry about young adults who want sex but aren’t having it. “It can feel really lonely if you feel like people are rejecting you or wouldn’t be interested in you,” she said.
But Tillman remains optimistic, noting the latest group of young adults, like every new generation, is finding its way and approaching sex differently than their parents.
“I’m not worried, because people are just basically finding different ways to connect with each other,” Tillman said.
Phillip Reese is a data reporting specialist and an assistant professor of journalism at California State University-Sacramento.
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