So I have a short little question for you guys and gals. My nutrition class is having a bit of an argument about whether or not sugar causes diabetes. What do you guys think?
No sugar does not cause diabetes. Medical science has been fighting this mis-information for some time now and no longer even refers to it as “sugar diabetes” anymore. If I had more time I’d look up some cites for you, but frankly they should be very easy to find yourself.
Here try this one:
Mayo Clinic on type 2 diabetes. This can often be weight-related, but there are many causes. And eating a ton of sugar but burning it off through activity such that you keep a good weight won’t trigger it.
(Hijack: It bothers me when the people who should know better believe “sugar=diabetes”. My MIL used to have type 2 diabetes but beat it by losing weight. These days, my inlaws religiously go for artificial sweeteners in their coffee, but gobble down tons of starch/high glycemic index carbohydrates like white potatoes, pancakes (with lots of fake “maple” syrup made from corn syrup), etc. It’s like they only learned to avoid white sugar from those years of experience, and not the other foods that can make your blood sugar spike.)
I was diagnosed as type 2 in 2002. From what I have heard until about 1994 diabetics were told to stay away from sugar and food with a lot of sugar. Now they just tell us to worry about carbs in general. I have lost 35 lbs. and my blood sugar is much better.
Sugar does not cause diabetes.
But too much sugar can make you fat, and obesity is highly correlated to type II diabetes.
It may be that “sugar causes diabetes” was one of those medical myths which was believed by laypersons for a long time, and up until fairly recently. When I was a kid (say 40-45 years ago) and was wont to eat a teaspoonful or two of sugar right out of the bowl my mom or (maternal) grandmother would lecture me to “stop that or you’ll get diabetes”.
As it turned out, I did get (type 2) diabetes, and I wish mom were still alive when I was diagnosed, in part so I could tease her about where I did get it: specifically, her family. There’s a very strong hereditary component to type 2 diabetes, and we discovered–when I was diagnosed and suddenly my grandmother started talking about everyone in her family who was diabetic–it turned out that my mom’s family is rotten with it. When the doctor I was seeing back then (late 1995, at age 38) heard that family history, he speculated that while I could have probably delayed my onset a few years by having done everything right (watching my weight and exercising) there was probably no way I’d have avoided it completely, and beating it by losing weight was probably out of the question.
Cheers,
bcg
Too much of any food can make you fat.
Fat cells are the most insulin resistant so the more fat cells you have the more likely you are to become type 2 diabetic. Excercise helps all your cells be less insulin resistant.