HEALTH + WELLNESS
Sweet Truths cont...
The advent of winter, heralded by November with its crisp dark mornings and increasingly chilly weather, is best characterised by coffee shops across the country serving up late autumn’ s gingerbread lattes, no doubt topped with whipped cream and a bit of extra caramel drizzle. The queues are long, festively designed cups are being rolled out and the mood is indulgent. But, behind all this seasonal sweetness lies a sobering reality: more people than ever before in the UK are living with diabetes, yet sugar- a comforting companion for many of us- becomes more alluring now than at any other time throughout the year.
Spanning as far back as most of us can likely remember, sugar has long-been nutrition’ s nemesis- a saccharine scapegoat for expanding waistlines, rotting teeth and a poor-health epidemic that shows no sign of slowing down. Is this reputation truly deserved, though, or is there more nuance to the story than the black-and-white headlines suggest?
The irony of sugar is so painful it almost induces sympathy. We need sugar; glucose is fuel for our brains, our muscles and our cells, so without it, life literally grinds to a halt. The problem isn’ t sugar itself, of course, it’ s both how much we intake and the form in which we consume it that matter most.
Intrinsic sugars, the ones tucked away inside apples, peas and glasses of milk( for example), behave differently in the body than the extrinsic, added sugars generously spooned into fizzy drinks, sauces, biscuits and ready meals. The first group comes wrapped in fibre, vitamins and minerals, slowing absorption and keeping blood sugar steady. The second, however, floods the bloodstream at speed, demanding an insulin surge to soak it up. Do that once in a while and your body copes, but do it daily- often multiple times a day because of the addictive dopamine spike that occurs with each hit- and the strain begins to show.
The UK’ s health advice is blunt: keep sugars below 30 grams a day, which equates to around seven sugar cubes. All sounds quite reasonable until you realise a single can of‘ that’ very popular fizzy drink takes up the entire quota and then exceeds it by five grams. Even a‘ healthy’ fruit smoothie can tip you over the edge because the fibre’ s been blitzed away. It’ s not just cake and sweets, either, it’ s the hidden sugars hiding in salad dressings, low-fat yoghurts, cereals and soups that do the heavy lifting.
Against this backdrop, diabetes has become one of the nation’ s defining health challenges. Let’ s repeat that sobering statistic- more than 5.8 million people in the UK are now living with the condition, the highest number ever recorded. Another 1.3 million are thought to have type 2 diabetes but remain undiagnosed. Add to that 6.3 million teetering on the edge with prediabetes and you begin to see the scale- this is not a fringe problem, it’ s a public health crisis.
Type 1 diabetes, caused by the immune system attacking insulin-producing cells, is not preventable and has nothing to do with lifestyle. Type 2, however, is another story. Here, the body either produces too little insulin or resists it altogether, leaving sugar to linger in the blood where it damages vessels, nerves and organs over time. Obesity is the biggest modifiable risk factor, and while family history, age and ethnicity all play roles in this, the everyday excess of added sugars has become one of the clearest culprits.
Sugary drinks in particular have been shown to directly increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, and in fairness there’ s now quite a lot of public knowledge surrounding this issue, but it’ s not always about the obvious treats. When repeated, quiet spikes in blood glucose from hidden sugars in everyday shopping-list items such as white bread, dried fruit and fruit juice tire the system, nudging people closer to diagnosis one snack at a time.
Where the topic gets complicated further still is with regard to the political versus the personal. On the one hand, it’ s easy to say‘ just eat less sugar’, while on the other hand, food environments make that far harder than it sounds to do this. Supermarkets are engineered for impulse buys, with sweets sat right where we wait at the till, not to mention the hard-to-resist two-for-one offers on biscuits, cakes and drinks. Fizzy drinks are cheap( don’ t even get me started on‘ energy’ drinks) and often placed up front in grab-and-go meal deals, and low-income households often rely on processed food, not because they don’ t know better, but because it’ s accessible, affordable and quick.
In fairness, policy has begun to make a dent- the Soft Drinks Industry Levy, the UK’ s sugar tax introduced in 2018- has pushed many brands to cut sugar in their recipes and public health campaigns have stirred up some awareness with recipe reformulation continuing quietly behind the scenes. But the statistics still creep upwards; more children and young adults are being diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, a condition once almost exclusive to middle age.
While this isn’ t about blame, it is about recognising the structural forces that push sugar into every corner of our diets. It’ s also about awareness- knowing where sugar lurks, understanding why it matters and making choices that are realistic, not perfect. For individuals, small steps are powerful; switching fizzy drinks for water, swapping refined carbs for wholegrains, cutting back on takeaways and walking more … The science shows that even modest weight loss( five to 10 % of body weight) can dramatically improve insulin sensitivity, so for those at high risk, simple lifestyle changes can reverse pre-diabetes entirely.
This is not only an individual burden, however, and governments and food manufacturers carry a huge responsibility, too. Clearer labelling, tighter rules on advertising to children and subsidies that make fresh food cheaper than processed food will be the changes that improve the population’ s health and, with any luck, World Diabetes Day is a chance to remind policymakers that awareness alone isn’ t enough- structural change must follow.
Often dismissed as‘ soft power’, you can say what you want about awareness, but it does save lives- just as cancer awareness campaigns have driven earlier detection, diabetes awareness can spark prevention. If it means someone notices their persistent thirst or tiredness and books a GP appointment; if it means a parent swaps squash for water at dinnertime; if it means communities understand that type 2 diabetes is not inevitable, nor is it a moral failing, but a condition with clear causes and clear ways to reduce risk- then it’ s working.
Equally, awareness helps chips away at stigma and unpicks the blame game. Too often, people with type 2 diabetes are judged, with their condition reduced to assumptions about laziness or greed, but the truth is more complex. Genetics matter, as do social determinants, but it is always knowledge- in this case about sugar, about lifestyle and about early detection- that levels the playing field.
Unquenchable thirst Constantly reaching for water, even at night.
Frequent trips to the loo Especially waking up often to urinate.
Unexplained weight loss Dropping pounds without trying.
Excessive tiredness Bone-deep fatigue that rest doesn’ t fix.
Blurry vision Experiencing sudden or noticeable changes in one or both eyes.
Spotting these signs early and speaking to your GP can make all the difference.
diabetes. org. uk
158 • www. insidekent. co. uk