Sugar

Eating sugar causes diabetes

Many people know that diabetes is a sugar problem, and that people with diabetes cannot have too much sugar. Along those lines, many people believe that eating sugar causes diabetes. They blame diabetes on having a chronic sweet tooth or on not being able to resist a sugary diet.

In order to understand diabetes, it is helpful to have an idea of what your body does with sugar. Your body gets much of its energy by converting the sugar and carbohydrates you eat into a special form of sugar called glucose. Glucose is the sugar that most of your body needs to operate. In order to absorb glucose, your body manufactures a special hormone called insulin that regulates the amount of glucose in your blood and the amount that is absorbed into different parts of the body. Your pancreas makes this insulin, and without insulin, you cannot absorb glucose into your body’s cells. If you do not have enough insulin or if your body does not respond to insulin, you cannot absorb or use sugar in the way your body needs.

There are two types of diabetes, called type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes. Type 1 diabetes usually develops in younger people, typically in children, when the pancreas stops making the insulin your body needs in order to absorb sugar. How much sugar you eat has absolutely nothing to do with developing type 1 diabetes. It is caused by genetics and other factors that trigger the pancreas to stop working normally. Type 2 diabetes usually develops in adults, although it sometimes develops in children as well. In type 2 diabetes, your body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin, so your body does not absorb sugar in the ways it is supposed to. Type 2 diabetes is caused by both genetic factors and lifestyle factors. In particular, being overweight significantly increases your risk of developing type 2 diabetes. It is possible that you could be overweight from eating too much sugar, but you could also be overweight from eating too much fat or any other diet high in calories. While eating a lot of sugar can certainly make your diet very high in calories, the sugar does not directly cause the diabetes.

Several studies in large groups of people have found that those who drink more sugar-sweetened beverages have higher rates of diabetes and more cases of type 2 diabetes. While this suggests a connection between sugar and diabetes, it is the connection that occurs because sugary drinks make you gain weight. In a systematic review that compiled studies looking at sugar-sweetened beverages and weight gain, the researchers found that drinking more sweet beverages was connected to more obesity and to being overweight for children and adults. Taking in sugar is not independently connected to developing diabetes; obesity is what is really connected to developing diabetes.

People with diabetes do not need to stay away from sugar altogether. They can eat sweets or starches, but they should eat them in moderation, as part of a healthy meal plan. Having a healthy diet means eating plenty of fruits and vegetables, some meats or proteins, and not more than a few servings of foods containing carbohydrates.

Even if you are not diabetic or if you now understand that sugar will not give you diabetes, there are plenty of reasons to eat sugar in moderation. Gaining too much weight or developing lots of cavities are bad effects from a diet too full of sugar. However, you do not need to worry that diabetes will automatically follow from your sweet tooth.