Sugar does not cause diabetes, and to all of my intelligent, beautiful, innovative Black people, we must stop saying this. For generations our community has colloquialized this ideology by warning, demeaning, and sometimes even playfully suggesting too much sugar will cause diabetes, and we were wrong!
Even though I’ve known diabetes is not caused by sugar ever since I was a child, I never thought to speak on it until now. I was born with Asthma, a weak immune system, and all year round allergies. Being in and out of the hospital was normal for me, not to mention, I’ve broken several bones, had several allergic reactions, twisted ankles, you name it! So, talking to Doctors and asking questions was a hobby for me because I had access to them.
When my weight started to rise due to my metabolism slowing, taking steroids for my lungs collapsing and becoming, due to medications and sickness, bigger, my Doctors warned me about Diabetes. However, my Doctors never suggested that sugar was the cause, so why was my community saying something different?
“He gone catch that sugar, uhm hmm that sugar diabetes if he keep putting all that sugar in that coffee (all that = four teaspoons)”. We’ve all heard it before, “Stop drinking all those sodas you gone catch that sugar”, and while my family never said this, I did hear it from friends and their family. I never understood the why. I always knew the truth, diabetes is not caused by sugar, but the why baffled me until I saw the documentary “What The Health” on NETFLIX a few years back.
The why is simple. Big PhRma creates sicknesses through diversions and supplies the “cure” or fix to keep you sick and buying medication you don’t need. The diversion here? Meat and fats cause diabetes, not sugar, but they’ll promote sugar as bad, and promote eating meat as good thus making us sicker without even knowing it. Until now.
According to the CDC diabetes is a disease/condition in which the body does not correctly process food as energy. Most of the food we eat turns into sugar which our bodies need to use for energy, but when you have diabetes your body’s pancreas can’t make enough insulin, or use the insulin properly. Because of that, the sugars build up in your blood stream vs being used for energy to fuel you which can make you go blind, have failing kidneys, be forced to amputate, and can cause death.
Black people are 1.7 times more likely to develop diabetes, and our death rates are 27% higher.
The most popular forms of diabetes are: Type 1, which is developed by auto immune, genetic, and environmental factors, and only account for about 10% of the diagnosed cases. And Type 2, which is what most people mean when they speak about “sugar diabetes” is developed by a list of factors: family history, low physical activity, obesity, and race. (not sugar). Type 2 accounts for about 90% of the diagnosed cases.
No. Sugar does not cause diabetes. The Center For Disease Control (CDC), American Diabetes Association (ADA), and the National Institutes Of Health (NIH) all agree that sugar does not cause diabetes. And while these organizations aren’t very trustworthy, their data, along with asking your local Doctors, and researching how diabetes is caused, you’ll find they all say the same thing. Sugar does not cause diabetes.
The connection between sugar and diabetes is simple. Weight gain is often caused by eating sugary foods such as cakes, pies, cookies, fruit filled pastries, sodas, juices, and breads. Consuming too much of this is not a good thing, but not because it will make you develop diabetes, but because our bodies do not need that much sugar to fuel us with energy, and the fats that you’re eating when you eat sugary foods like the butter, flour, and oils used to create those delectable delights, are the main reasons for weight gain, and diabetes.
However, being overweight is not, nor has it ever been, the leading risk of developing diabetes rather one factor in combination with other factors that cause diabetes. Being overweight can lead to a number of diseases and puts a person’s body at risk for all sorts of aliments. If we stop promoting “sugar diabetes” as a reason to stop, and actually educate ourselves on the MEAT that we are consuming, we’d be better off.
Big PhrMa has conditioned us to believe sugar = bad, meat = good. These companies have convinced us that a chicken based diet is better than a red meat based diet when in fact, chicken and beef, processes the same way in your body and can over work your bodies basic functions which can lead to diabetes, and even cancer!
Your pancreas is responsible for releasing the hormone insulin which helps carry the sugars in your blood to the cells, but if there is fat blocking it, the sugars build up in your blood stream causing diabetes. If your pancreas is overworked from trying to process heavy fatty meats the hormone insulin it produces will not properly work…get it?
The over consumption of fatty foods, processed foods, and meats cause diabetes, not sugar! Even then there is still a combination of race, family history, physical activity, and environment that must be considered. Diabetes is not as simple as “stop eating meat/sugar”.
Prevention takes a plant-based protein diet (spinach, kale, etc), exercise, physical activity, a lower fat intake, water, and proper food fueling (eating several times a day vs twice or once) to prevent diabetes and a list of other diseases.
If we’re going to use scare tactics to keep us “healthy” in our community, let’s stop saying “sugar causes diabetes” and speak the truth. Fat causes diabetes, meat causes diabetes, lack of exercise, race, and the combination of sorts causes diabetes. It may not be as fun as saying “sugar diabetes”, but at least it’s the truth.
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