Think about your favorite food. There is a good chance that it contains sugar in some form or the other. There are a very few people who do not like sugar. It is a favorite among children. Besides taste, sugar serves as a preservative and also helps giving colour to the food. Despite so many uses, what is the first question that springs to mind when someone discovers he/she has diabetes: have I been taking a lot of sugar? Don’t always believe this to be true. Learn all about the sugar facts before you make sugar the culprit.
What are sugars?
Sugars are carbohydrates and are present in many different forms. They occur in natural form in foods or are added to foods. The different forms of sugars include sucrose, glucose, fructose and galactose. What you eat, that is, table sugar is sucrose.
Functions of sugar
Sugar, being a carbohydrate, is the main energy source for the body. In the body, the sugars, which are present in a complex form breakdown into simple sugars. These simple sugars then travel through the blood and reach the different cells of the body. In the cells, the sugars provide energy for various cell functions and the excess amount is stored for future use. Other than these body functions, sugar impart taste, texture and color to the foods.
Sugar and diabetes
Diabetes is not a disorder that is caused by sugar. It is a disorder in the way the body handles the sugar in the body. Insulin is the hormone that controls the sugar levels in the blood. In diabetics, the blood sugar levels elevate. This is due to the insensitivity of insulin or lack of insulin. So there is no role of sugar in causing diabetes. Sugar does not reduce the production of insulin or makes it unavailable for use in the body. In fact, sugar is necessary since all sugars are decomposed into glucose for utilization. Glucose is the form of sugar, which is utilized by most body parts. Your brain alone needs 125 to 150 grams of glucose per day. Hence without glucose, survival is difficult.
Also, more than sugar fat is more linked to diabetes. This is because fats are the other source of energy for the body. The energy supplied by sugar is fast energy and is utilized also equally fast, whereas the energy supplied by fats gets stored in the body and keeps you moving all day and night. So if the fat is in excess or in limited quantities, there will be fluctuations in the blood glucose levels. So sugars alone do not cause diabetes.
So the next time you meet a diabetic, do not blame his sugar intake for his diabetes. It is his lifestyle and other dietary habits that result in the disease.
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