I know around the middle of the 20th century vegetable oils, synthetic sweetener became a thing. But statistic wise doesn’t make sense, even if before it caused tooth problems, but not diabetes.
In: Biology
Sugar was very inaccessible to most people before the industrialisation of agriculture. It was rare and expensive and only the rich could afford it. So much so that in Tudor times in England supposedly people coloured their teeth black to pretend they can afford such luxuries (read: bad teeth were a sign of wealth).
The problems started when sugar became so cheap that it was put into basically anything – even food that we don’t perceive as “sweet” (like eg. Ketchup).
Mass production of processed foods, which are loaded with sugar, ramped up in the late 20th and hasn’t slowed.
Limited understanding of diabetes and lack of reliable insulin sources means anyone that got diabetes would’ve likely died, making it less likely to pass on.
Diabetes wasn’t exactly rare, it’s one of the oldest known diseases, with first mentions byt the ancient eqyptians.
However treating it wasn’t really possible until insulin was synthesised in the 1920’s and the current [NPH](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPH_insulin) in the 1940’s.
So you’re seeing a huge uptick in people actually being diagnosed and then in treatment since the 1940’s vs the rest of human history.
Aso in the US that period coincides with High Fructose Corn Syrup pretty much taking over from refined sugar in most American foods and drinks, meaning the issue isn’t sugar cane to begin with.
Access to sugar wasn’t widespread before the mid 20th century. It was a luxury, and most people didn’t eat sugar often. Sugary drinks were also not really a thing, at least not as widespread as they are today. Before the mid 20th century, the most common sweetener was molasses. More commonly if people were eating something sweet it was either syrup or honey.
However your question is based on a false premise. Sugar doesn’t cause diabetes. Overconsumption can increase chances of developing it but that’s one out of many other factors. Basically diabetes has become more prevalent due to a host of changes in our diets, which doesn’t stop at sugar. The main cause of diabetes is obesity, and obesity also skyrocketed after the mid20th century and continues to climb in the 21st century. Consuming a lot of sugar doesn’t cause diabetes but it can lead to obesity, and obesity causes diabetes.
It’s not sugar alone that causes type 2 diabetes, it’s physical inactivity and obesity together with hereditary susceptibility. Physical inactivity and obesity were both very rare before 1900’s. Also, sugar was very expensive. And also – if you had diabetes type 1 before the production of insulin, you typically died within weeks.
A long time ago, people didn’t eat as much sugar and candy as we do now. They ate more vegetables, fruits, and foods that weren’t sweet. They also moved around a lot more because they didn’t have cars or TVs to sit and watch.
But now, we have a lot of yummy sweet foods, like candy, cookies, and sodas, and we can buy them easily. We also sit more because we have video games and TV. Eating too many sweet things and not moving enough can make our bodies sick, and that’s why more people have a sickness called diabetes today.
So, even though sugar was around before, people didn’t eat as much of it, and they were more active, so they didn’t get sick as often.
Yay! Good job, you did really well, and for that, you get this candy cane!!
There is nothing particularly different between beet sugar and cane sugar, the two most widely used crops for producing table sugar. They’re mostly just pure sucrose. Of course, in modern times both are now widely available and low cost. This has, understandably, led to a bit of overuse and therefore overconsumption. Humans are predisposed to “like” the taste of sugar since it is the basic nutrient that provides energy either in the form of starches or sugar.
Of course, there is a rather more cynical interpretation of the marketing and so called research. When Europeans owned slaves and cane plantations, nothing bad is said about cane sugar. Sugar beets are temperate climate crops and grown in Europe and the US. Not very surprisingly, there is not going to be a lot of research money or government support to highlight the dangers of beet sugar as that would be politically troublesome to the local (voting) farmers.
For type 1 diabetics, they just died and so were not around long enough to make it a common disease.
For type 2, only very few people could afford enough sweet foods and no physical activity to make it a problem. Diabetes was a problem for the select few in upper classes, everyone else had to walk, carry heavy stuff around. Food, especially sweet food, was scarce, and many people were on an invoultary diet during the winter months anyway.
Diabetes is not only caused by consuming natural sugars. Highly processed foods mainly those high in carbohydrates have contributed a great deal. The whole low-fat marketing campaign also contributed as those products were high in artificial sweeteners to add flavor. All these exploded in the 20th century.
Teeth problems could come from stone flour milling because bread acted like an emory board when being eaten.
The bigger issue with the advent of soda/soft drink has been the uptick of renal failure in places where these drinks or either more readily available, or affordable, than safe fresh water. Bottled water by equal qty is around 4 times more expensive.
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