The consumption of sugary foods and drinks may be doing more than just rotting teeth and expanding waistlines, it may also be doubling the risk of a heart-related premature death, according to a new study Fox News reported.

In the first nationally-representative study examining added sugars affect rates of death from cardiovascular disease, researchers from the U.S. Centers for Disease control and Prevention revealed that drinking just two cans of regular soda in a 2,000-calories daily diet could "substantially" increase the risk of dying prematurely from heart disease, even in people who are not overweight, the Examiner reported.

Unlike Naturally occurring sugars which are found naturally in foods such as fruit (fructose), milk (lactose), and some vegetables, added sugars are put in foods during preparation or processing. The major sources of added sugars are regular soft drinks, sugars, candy, cakes, cookies, pies and fruit drinks. Added sugars are considered to be far more harmful to our bodies than naturally-occurring sugars.

The study was recently published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

"Sugar has adverse health effects above any purported role as 'empty calories' promoting obesity," Laura Schmidt, a professor of health policy in the School of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, writes in an accompanying editorial. "Too much sugar doesn't just make us fat; it can also make us sick."

For the study, researchers examined national health survey data. They divided the populations into segments: those who consumed the least amount of added sugars - less than 10 percent of daily calories consumed - and those who consumed at least 25 percent of their daily calories from added sugar. They found that people who consumed the highest amounts of added sugars were more than twice as likely to die from heart disease.

People who consumed approximately 17 to 21 percent of their calories from added sugar had a 38 percent higher risk of dying from cardiovascular disease, compared with those who consumed approximately 8 percent of calories from added sugar, the study authors concluded.

"It's not entirely surprising because we already have emerging evidence to show high consumption of added sugar is linked to obesity and type 2 diabetes, hypertension and instance of CVD," study author Quanhe Yang told Fox News.

Yang suggest that people read food labels to see how much added sugar is in there and try to choose the lowest added sugar and reduce consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages.