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

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.