In the 1950s, John Yudkin wrote a book, Pure, White, and Deadly, blaming sugar as the primary cause of heart disease (coronary heart disease). The idea didn’t gain enough traction and the dietary fat theory of heart disease became the reigning dogma. Now that the latter theory has been discredited, researchers are looking at sugar again.
The British Medical Journal has a pertinent article you may enjoy, if you enjoy these sorts of things. I quote:
“In recent years, and slowly, the sugar hypothesis has been making a comeback, driven in part by the emerging perception of heart disease as a consequence of what’s now described as the metabolic syndrome: obesity, dyslipidaemia, raised blood pressure, and insulin resistance. Although there is still no consensus about the causes of the syndrome, an excess of fat in the liver—a response to dietary sugar—is one of the acknowledged possibilities. Fructose, found in large quantities in nearly all added sugars, is known to increase lipogenesis in the liver and the synthesis of hepatic triglyceride.”
Advanced Mediterranean Diet 