Did you know some of your daily life food could cause diabetes?
Diabetes is a condition that causes your blood glucose levels, also known as blood sugar levels, to become too high.
The most common is type 2 diabetes, and whilst many are quick to assume an extra square of chocolate will result in a diagnosis, that is not always true.
Explained on the Channel 4 programme, Live Well with the Drug-Free Doctor, the show’s host, Dr Rangan Chatterjee, revealed that for one featured patient on the show, it wasn’t sweets that caused him to develop type 2 diabetes, it was carbs.
“When Chris got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, it wasn’t because he was having a huge amount of sweets. It was actually because he was eating loads and loads of starchy carbohydrates”, he explained.
The doctor could then be seen holding a handful-sized amount of pasta and explained: “This amount of pasta can have the same impact on your blood glucose levels as eating six and a half teaspoons of sugar.”
Meanwhile, a “sandwich portion of processed white bread contains eight teaspoons of sugar. And a small portion of white rice can have the same impact on your blood glucose levels as consuming 10 teaspoons of sugar.”
“Now, if you are a normal and healthy individual, this is not really a huge problem. You’re going to release a hormone called insulin which is going to take out that excess blood glucose and return it back to normal,” he said, reassuring his audience.
“However, if you keep abusing the system day after day, week after week and month after month, you’re going to become resistant to the insulin, which can lead to you developing type two diabetes,” Dr. Chatterjee added.
Heading to Southport to talk to Doctor David Unwin, an award-winning GP known for pioneering the low-carb approach in the UK, the expert said: “I’ve been in this practice for 45 years and when I first came, in the whole practice, we had 56 people with type two diabetes.”
“40 years on we’ve got 600. So that is a tenfold increase in this problem, and the people are getting younger and younger. My youngest is now 12 years old. I think we’re sleepwalking into a disaster.”
