if sugar is important for human body then how diabetes (high and low) is so dangerous disease for humans?
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Who is saying sugar is important to the human body?
One of the effects of diabetes is that the body’s ability to regulate sugar levels is impaired.
When sugar falls too low, it can become a medical emergency. A coma or death can occur if the sugar level isn’t raised. A human brain cannot function without sufficient blood sugar.
When sugar gets too high, many types of damage begin to occur particularly in the eyes, kidneys, and nerves. This usually isn’t *urgent*, but it is seriously damaging if it continues. Over a period of time, eyesight can be lost, nerves can become damaged, kidneys can fail, and poor circulation can lead to loss of limbs. Associated risks of liver disease and heart disease are also increased.
Sugar needs to get inside cells in order to do the important things. Diabetes is a disease where the cells don’t know they’re supposed to import the sugar, because they either do not have enough “here is sugar” messages (type 1 – not enough insulin) or they don’t listen to the “here is sugar” messages (type 2 – insulin insensitivity).
That’s why the amount of sugar in the blood is used to diagnose diabetes – it can’t do what it needs to in the blood, it needs to get into the cells.
Insulin tells the cells “time to import sugar”.
Back in the hunter/gatherer times, sugary foods (fruit) were seasonal treats to provide quick energy. What we have now is processed food artificially packed with sugar, which is addictive, to encourage us to buy more processed food.
Diabetes is a failure of the pancreas to provide the insulin needed to convert sugar in the bloodstream into energy loaded into cells where it can be used. Sugar molecules are crystals with sharp edges. When there is too much of it coursing around in the blood, it literally damages cells it runs into, causing all kinds of secondary health problems.
Just because something is important doesn’t mean more of it is better. It also doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant where it’s located. Water is important but too much it, especially in your lungs, will cause drowning.
Diabetes means too much sugar in your bloodstream which is already bad, but it also means it’s not being absorbed into your cells where it may be needed
Water is important for the human body. Yet people drown all the time and that is just having to much water. Moderation in all things…. Even moderation.
Once upon a time food was scarce. People didn’t have diabetes because there just wasn’t enough food to get diabetes with. But in the post industrial word food is abundant.
We crave sugar because putting on a little weight before the winter made People more likely to survive the winter and make more babies.
Eating sugar isn’t that important. Assuming you eat a sufficient amount of nutritious food, your liver can happily make all the sugar you need.
Despite how important it is, our bodies don’t like having very much glucose in the bloodstream.
Insulin is like a key; it is required to unlock the outer coating of the cell (membrane) and let glucose into the cell where it can be broken down to make energy (and in doing so also reduces the blood glucose concentration). It also helps the liver turn extra glucose into a molecule called glycogen, which can be stored. If there’s lots of glycogen already, the extra glucose gets turned into fat (adipose tissue).
In type I diabetes the body’s pancreas can’t make any insulin so the diabetic needs to inject themselves with insulin in order to get glucose into the cells, otherwise the body has to find alternative fuel sources (usually proteins which leads to muscle breakdown and creates ammonia, a toxic compound, as a waste product. Fats can also be used). In type II diabetes the body isn’t able to use the insulin it makes properly, though sometimes diet can help control it.
As a macronutrient, carbohydrates (whether ingested as sugars or starches) are important for fueling the body’s functions. However too much or too little sugar in your blood can have serious consequences. Too much can damage organs like the kidneys, and damage blood vessels, putting you at risk of stroke or heart attack, or neuropathy in your extremities, which can lead to losing limbs. Too little sugar in the blood, starves the body of fuel and causes whole systems to slow or shut down altogether. For good health, blood sugar levels need to stay within a certain range that is somewhere in the middle. Since diabetes is a disease in which the body cannot regulate its blood sugar levels, it has the potential to expose you to both extremes.
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