ATLANTA — Sugar added to food — not sugar naturally occurring in fruit — is associated with increased risk for death from heart disease, U.S. researchers say.

Quanhe Yang of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and colleagues used national health survey data to examine added sugar consumption as a percentage of daily calories and to estimate association between consumption and cardiovascular disease.

The study, published in the JAMA Internal Medicine, found from 2005 to 2010, 71.4 percent of U.S. adults consumed 10 percent or more of their calories from added sugar and about 10 percent of adults consumed 25 percent or more of their calories from added sugar.

Study findings indicated the average percentage of daily calories from added sugar increased from 15.7 percent in 1988 to 1994 to 16.8 percent in 1999 to 2004 but decreased to 14.9 percent in 2005-2010.

Regular consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages — seven servings or more per week — was associated with increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, the study said.

“Our results support current recommendations to limit the intake of calories from added sugars in U.S. diets,” the study authors wrote in the study.

Major sources of added sugar in U.S. diets are sugar-sweetened beverages, grain-based desserts, fruit drinks, dairy desserts and candy, the researchers said.