If cane sugar is the worst “natural” sweetener, why was diabetes so rare before the sudden increase of diabetes in the 20th century?

Question

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

Answer 1

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.