SimonTrew wrote:.....
Unfortunately Fluffster has hit the nail on the thumb, so there is no point my doing anything other than quote in full. Sugar OF ITSELF is not going to kill you or do you any harm. But it is added to so many, er, preprocessed foods that it is INVISIBLE, you can look on the back of the packet and find there is this much sucrose, or then they put in fructose or glucose or some other kind of sugar so that they don't have to say "sugar", it is all sugar. Sugar, of itself, is NOT harmful. Yes, I guess to a diabetic who has to watch their sugar levels, both UP and DOWN, it could be harmful, to people who are not diabetic, it will do you no harm. I don't tend to eat breakfast cereal but the amount of sugar that goes in breakfast cereal, even in the supposedly "healthy" ones... I have a bacon sandwich, of course, which has sugar in the bread, and some fat, and some protein, I also walk about ten kilometres a day so I need a bit of carbohydrate to give me energy.....
There's sugar and there's sugar. In the metabolism, the diabetic thing only involves glucose but in my experience other sugars seem to effect blood levels. There's maltose, sucrose, glucose, fructose, lactose...etc. People say blood sugar but they mean blood glucose. Glucose is carbohydrate so that's why it's mixed up on the label.
Diabetes is not a disease of low blood glucose levels, it's one of high glucose levels. Too much bad, too little bad. Type 1s have lows and highs (which are dangerous) but Type 2s do not usually have dangerous lows - they just get hungry or cranky.
Lows in Type 1s are due to taking too much insulin. Not taking insulin means a high and this makes the blood acidic and also thickens it. Lows in T1s are often confused with alcohol intoxication and that's how T1s end up dead in the police cells - i.e. sleep it off. They go into a coma and die as brain needs glucose to function.
If you see someone you think is pissed, it could be a diabetic low. Lows cause real confusion and slow thinking and real muddle. If someone is diabetic, appears drunk and they are conscious, give them some normal coca-cola or similar (but not if they are unconscious) or if they have a glucose pen, zap them with it.
Conversely, if it's a high, their breath will smell of pear drops and they need insulin (they need to go to hospital asap to make sure it's the right amount) and definitely no coca-cola. Really out of it persons with no obvious injury would be tested for blood glucose by default anyway.
One of the worse things for diabetic to eat for brekkie is muesli. Utterly sugar laden. Better to have a fried egg and bacon (no sugar in that) but no bread.
T2s need to eat regularly but small amounts to try and spread the load out across the day to avoid the peaks. Otherwise they get a high and then fall asleep. It's really an under-appreciated issue amongst the rest of the population. More interestingly, diabetes is a disability albeit hidden - employers have to make allowances for it.