Does Eating Sugar Cause Diabetes?

Over the years we've all received a lot of "wise" health advice that ended up being myths. One of these bits of advice is that eating too much sugar will give you diabetes. Does eating sugar cause diabetes?

Many health myths persist because they seem logical or may even be based off of medical knowledge at the time. Since diabetes affects the way the body processes sugar, it could lead some to think that eating too much sugar could actually cause diabetes.

What is diabetes? Depending on the type of diabetes, either the body can no longer produce insulin or the body develops a tolerance to insulin so that it no longer does its job. After the body breaks down sugar into glucose, insulin takes this to the cells for food. If insulin doesn't work or is not being produced, glucose builds up in the blood.

So why would anyone think that eating sugar could cause diabetes? As noted above, with diabetes sugar builds up in the blood. If someone ate a lot of sugary foods, it could be believed that it was the food intake that caused the build up, or that perhaps that insulin could not keep up with so much sugar.

Another reason it could have been believed that eating sugar caused diabetes is that type 2 diabetes developed more frequently in adults. People may have thought that many years of bad eating habits and consuming too many sugary foods could lead to the build-up of sugar in the blood.

Type 2 diabetes is more commonly seen in those who are overweight or obese. Eating an unhealthy diet that includes too many sugary foods and snacks can lead to becoming overweight or obese. The association between sweets and diabetes could have been made from this observation. However, we now know that obesity can be a triggering factor in the development of type 2 diabetes.

Although type 1 diabetes and type 2 diabetes are different, there are genetic factors involved with both and both are triggered by some type of environmental factors. Eating sugar is not one of them, unless you eat so much that it causes massive amounts of weight gain. So if you become overweight or obese and have a genetic predisposition, you simply have an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

So although eating a lot of sugary foods may not be good for you and may cause health risks involved with inadequate nutrition and the possibility of becoming overweight or obese, it won't give you diabetes. Thus, the correct response to this myth is no, eating sugar does not cause diabetes.

THIS ARTICLE IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY AND SHOULD NOT REPLACE THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN.

SOURCES:

American Diabetics Association

Genetics of Diabetics

Diabetes Myths