There seems to be many misconceptions about how people become diabetic. One is that eating sugar will cause you to have the disease. With as much information as if there is available, one would think that people would by now understand that eating sugar does not “cause” a person to have diabetes. Educating ones self can help put the myths about diabetes out of the picture.
There are cases where eating high calorie foods will cause a person to be overweight or even obese, which can contribute to some individuals developing type 2 diabetes, but it is not the actual sugar that is causing it to develop. It is normally the extra weight that is gained when a person is consuming too many sugary foods that are high in calories. Any high calorie foods, whether they are sweetened with sugar or not, can cause weight gain, and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes is raised when a person is overweight.
Knowing the different types of diabetes can also be useful in separating the facts from the myths. Millions of people are diagnosed with some form of the disease every year. The most common type of diabetes is type 2. It is normally diagnosed when a person is middle aged and is not caused by eating sugar, but is many times cause by the person being very overweight. Several different ethnic groups are more prone to being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, and those include Hispanics, African Americans and some with American Indian heritage.
Another form of diabetes is type 1. This too, has absolutely nothing at all to do with consuming sugar, although most diabetics do have to limit their sugar intake, once diagnosed. Type 1 can be an inherited disease. Many individuals with this type of diabetes are diagnosed when they are children.
The last form of diabetes occurs during pregnancy and is called gestational diabetes. It commonly occurs during the last trimester of pregnancy. Many times the woman will not be diabetic after giving birth.
