• Question: What is the link between diabetes and eating sugary food in the morning?

    Asked by charlo123 to Jen, Jill, Mel, Phil, Stef on 17 Mar 2013.
    • Photo: Stefan Piatek

      Stefan Piatek answered on 17 Mar 2013:

      Well I guess it depends on the type of diabetes. From memory there are two types.

      Type 1 seems to be something that you just inherit – like the colour of your eyes, and your body doesn’t seem to produce insulin. (Insulin is needed to convert sugar and starch into energy properly)

      Type 2 is caused either by your body not producing enough insulin or your body not reacting to the insulin well enough. Type 2 is the most common and eating a lot of calories, being overweight and having a lot of sugar are a linked to it. http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/sugary-drinks-type2-diabetes/

      The idea is that maybe because sugar is a quick fix of energy, you don’t get full from it as much as you do from other things. So you go on to eat more calories and have more chance of getting type 2 diabetes.

      Let me know if that doesn’t make sense!

    • Photo: Melissa Brereton

      Melissa Brereton answered on 17 Mar 2013:

      Diabetes is not always caused by eating sugary good in the morning but in people with the disease, whenever they eat any type of food (not just sugar) it causes problems. This is because when we eat food, the levels of glucose (a type of sugar) increases. But for most people this isn’t a problem because when the glucose reaches an organ in our body called the pancreas, it produces a hormone called insulin. Insulin acts on our muscles and liver to remove the glucose from our blood and so the levels return to normal. In people with diabetes, they cannot produce insulin after they eat a meal so their glucose levels remain high. Having high blood glucose levels for a very long time can be really bad for you- it can cause you to become blind or even your fingers and toes to fall off. To stop this from happening, diabetic people have to inject insulin after they have eaten to stop their blood glucose levels from getting too high.

      There are lots of different types of diabetes but the most common is called type 2 diabetes and it is usually caused by obesity.

    • Photo: Phil Rice

      Phil Rice answered on 18 Mar 2013:

      I don’t think timing has much to do with it. It’s all about the type and quantity of food one eats. Try porridge in the morning and you won’t be tempted by any snacks before lunch; I love it for my cycle to work

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