@Mad Indian
I am not a doctor, however I understand the basic fact that Sugar which is basically Sucrose - a simple form of Carbohydrate gives up instant calorie and thus increase sugar-level in blood much fast, is worse than any complex carbohydrate like fructose or other.
Hence, the people with Blood Sugar problem are at risk from consumption of sugar, as instead of delayed and gradual release of glucose in blood, it increases it faster and compromises the person's health.
I had already explained this . But it got lost in the stupid posts of
@Rashna and
@genius.
Sucrose/common sugar is NOT a simple sugar.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disaccharide
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucrose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fructose
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monosaccharide
Human body CANNOT absorb disaccharides like sucrose before they are digested. Sucrose is a disaccharide made up of Glucose and Fructose. So Sucrose is not absorbed directly from the intestine. Sucrose is first digested into its component simple sugars/monosaccharides - Glucose and fructose before it is absorbed into the body. And of course, body only absorbs glucose, fructose galactose(which is a component of lactose or milk sugar)
It is a myth that sugar increases the glucose level in blood rapidly. It does not. Sugar falls under medium glycemic index food category with a glycemic index of 68, .ie the foods which increase the blood glucose moderately fast. Foods like White Bread (97), White Rice(98), Processed Wheat(maitha?), Parthas etc, fall under "high glycemic index" category, .ie the foods which increase the blood glucose levels very fast on consumption.
here are some foods and their glycemic indexes
http://www.diabetes.org/food-and-fi...betes.html?referrer=https://www.google.co.in/
So sugar is actually safer comparative to say white rice or processed wheat flour(maitha). The reason is because digestion of sugar is by the enzyme Sucrase present only in the small intestine. On the other hand, the starch present in the processed wheat flour, white rice etc start getting digested as soon as they enter the mouth. Saliva in our mouth has salivary amylase which converts starch into glucose. So the absorption of glucose starts much earlier in case of starch compared to say sucrose.
So dont write off sugar simply for its name or its glycemic index.
The calorie of sugar is not alone the problem here. Even, honey which has more caloric measure vis-a-vis sugar, is considered good for some sugar patients because of its complex compound and slow glucose release.
While it is true Honey has a lower glycemic index (GI), it is also true that the amount of sugar you are going to be consuming per day is going to be too insignificant to make much of a difference in your health.
Seriously, lets say you are going to take 3 coffees a day. Even with 2 tea spoons of sugar per coffee, at the max, you are going to take 6 teaspoons of sugar? So you will be consuming 150 Kcalories of energy? But on average your daily intake of energy is going to be around 2300Kcals . And you know very well that our diets are going to consist of rice, bread, chappathis etc, which in many cases have a higher or atleast similiar GI to sugar? So what difference is it going to make that you add 150 kcals of sugar the coffee ?
Yes, it is article learned knowledge. However, I have never ever read a single article or anybody say as you are saying, against avoiding sugar for blood sugar patient.
Do you know how many Doctors still take sugarless coffee?(That too without artificial sweetners?) I usually ask them the same question and they usually wont have an answer. Most of them still have an outdated knowledge of how to deal with diabetes. Seriously though, what I am saying is the latest management of diabetes. You wont find the young diabetologists giving advice to stop using sugars.
The present day advice is that there need be no restriction on the diet you eat, so long as the diet is balanced and has correct calories tailored to your needs. That is, you can even eat mutton and chicken, so long as you calculate the calories you eat to be under the ideal consumption. Now, the management modality is more about how much you eat and not what you eat.
And of course, the emphasis should be made on the "calories" you take, and I cant stress this enough. When I am saying that you can eat "whatever" food you want, it should not be taken as "how much ever" you want. For example, if your father is a sugar patient and he is taking 4 milked coffees without sugar each day, it wont make any difference if he reduced the coffees to 3, but adding sugar to it and it might actually be beneficial, in that 3 sugared coffees have lower calories than 4 sugarless coffees.
My father being a sugar patient, I would seriously like to know the source of your deduction, as it may very well benefit me in future.
This is not something I have deducted. This is the latest management protocol for Diabetes, .ie the focus is on glycemic control and not on what food we eat. This is what my father also follows in his practice. The only doctors who still advice sugar free foods are those who have not yet updated their knowledge of this subject.
Hope this helps and pls ask any doubt you might have, as any misinterpretation of what I have said might be bad for health.
