Is diabetes a sugar intolerance?

arjster

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I was reading an article on sugar and obesity and it struck me - is diabetes just an intolerance like lactose or gluten intolerance but an intolerance to sugar?

I know it's quite a generalisation but it would apply to both types - type 1 where the body can't produce insulin so the sugar builds up and for type 2 the ineffective use of insulin resulting in the body becoming resistant to normal levels of insulin.

It's kind of a round about way which makes both types of diabetes intolerant to sugar?


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Daibell

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Yes, you are right on the nail. I would define diabetes as a condition where the body is unable to handle glucose (in the body) properly. As all carbs are converted quickly to glucose in the body, any carb needs to be controlled by a diabetic. Sometimes exercise helps and sometimes medication as well, but sugar and highly refined carbs such as flour are a problem. It's for this reason I get rather angry when HCPs sometimes say to diabetics to have a normal healthy diet when they wouldn't say that to a lactose or gluten intolerant patient. Well I hope so as my grandson is lactose intolerant and ends up in A&E if he has milk by mistake!
 
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Yorksman

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The elevated blood glucose levels in diabetics is a symptom with a few possible causes. In Type 1 diabetics for example, the insulin producing beta cells are attacked by the body's own immune system. It sees them as foreign bodies. In Type 2 diabetics the beta cells stop working for other reasons, including internal deposits of fat blocking the Islets of Langerhans in the pancreas. There are also other metabolic disorders which are factors.

Lactose intolerance is a very wide term covering many conditions. All children should be able to drink, mainly, because they need mother's milk in infancy. However, in most humans throughout the world, the ability to produce the necessary enzyme lactase is switched off in the teens. Adults generally cannot drink milk because they lack the enzyme lactase required to digest the beta carbohydrate lactose which is found in milk. For some unknown reason however, some can drink half a glass of milk without being sick whereas others get sick licking an ice cream.

However, the cattle dairying cultures in northern europe, india and sub saharan africa and the camel drinking nomadic cultures in arabia, all have high frequencies of specific genes which allow lactase persistence, ie where lactase continues to be produced in adulthood. A different gene however is responsible in each of these four cultures. In europe, it is a C to T transition at 13910 Kb. The european variety is a mutation, a copy error where a cytosine nucleotide substituted by a thyamine nucleotide. It is thought to have occured around 5000 years ago. Mediterranean cultures have much lower instances of the LAC P gene as it is termed, than north europe.

fig1


In children, many things including milk allergy were termed lactose intolerance but now that the genetic components are better understood, it seems to be either an early switching off of lactase production or of insufficient amounts being produced. In eastern Finland for example, lactase production is switched off much earlier than in southern europeans. Superficially, a lack of lactase is similar to the lack of insulin but the causes are very different and the outcomes are very different. In infancy it is of course a major problem but once a child can eat solid foods, it is less so and, as you can see from the chart above, most of the world cannot digest milk in adulthood.

The Vinland Sagas tell of the vikings in North America giving the Skraelings milk to drink. The Skraelings, the native americans, became sick and thought the norse had poisoned them. Hostilities followed.

Beware of vikings bearing dairy products! The Battles in Vinland 1020 AD
 
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anna29

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I was reading an article on sugar and obesity and it struck me - is diabetes just an intolerance like lactose or gluten intolerance but an intolerance to sugar?

I know it's quite a generalisation but it would apply to both types - type 1 where the body can't produce insulin so the sugar builds up and for type 2 the ineffective use of insulin resulting in the body becoming resistant to normal levels of insulin.

It's kind of a round about way which makes both types of diabetes intolerant to sugar?


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Yep - it can be veiwed and interpreted as this . :)
We have to then get rid of the sugar build up via the loo [urine] :arghh:

I am wheat/gluten intolerant too .
React badly with bread,pasta,potatoes, onion family of onions,shallots,leeks too

More for me to watch out for and deal with :bigtears:
 

phoenix

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There is actually such a thing as sucrose intolerance ie lacking the enzyme to metabolise sugar . It is a genetic condition and very rare in Europe but apparently it has a higher incidence amongst people from Greenland, Alaska and of Canadian 'Eskimo' descent.. .(you learn a new thing every day). http://www.sucraid.net/about-csid
 
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Yorksman

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There is actually such a thing as sucrose intolerance ie lacking the enzyme to metabolise sugar . It is a genetic condition and very rare in Europe but apparently it has a higher incidence amongst people from Greenland, Alaska and of Canadian 'Eskimo' descent.. .(you learn a new thing every day). http://www.sucraid.net/about-csid


There are lots of them, such as alcohol dehydrogenase deficiency. Different human populations produce different enzymes. The genes responsible were carried by migrating peoples who mixed with migrating peoples at some point in time at some particular geographic location. These autosomal genetic variations between populations form a part of the study of ancient human migrations just as much as cultural artefacts such as pottery, jewellery, tools or textiles.
 

the_anticarb

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I once read diabetes described as 'a disorder of carbohydrate metabolism'. I think that just about sums it up.
 
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AMBrennan

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is diabetes just an intolerance like lactose or gluten intolerance but an intolerance to sugar?
No, that's just clever wordplay; just because two conditions may have superficial similarities to a layman doesn't mean they are identical.
 

Scardoc

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Yes and no.

Tolerate.
2.
be capable of continued subjection to (a drug, toxin, or environmental condition) without adverse reaction.

Well, as a T1 diabetic I can't be subjected continuously to sugar as my pancreas does not produce enough insulin to deal with it. So, yeah, I have sugar intolerance.

But - that said, it's not the sugar that is the issue. It's my clapped out pancreas and I can inject insulin to deal with it. So, not so intolerant.

Comes down to definitions and interpretations and personal opinion. A bit like the word "genocide" in 1994 when the Western World refused to use it and then said it was a "legal phrase" whilst 800,000 people in Rwanda were slaughtered!! Madleine Albright, Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan and Boutros Boutros Ghali - the blood will never wash off!!

Right, maybe I should hop over to the diabetes soapbox!
 

JANROU

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As far as I see it an allergy/intolerance to sugar is different to being diabetic, just the same as having a gluten/ wheat allergy is different to being a coeliac. Diabetes and coeliac disease are both autoimmune diseases were the body destroys part of itself whereas if some has an allergy it doesn't.


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Scardoc

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I have only ever had flu once, end of Feb 2007. In bed for 4 days. One year later I was diagnosed type 1.

Coincidence?
 

Scardoc

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Theresa May (MP) was diagnosed T1 last July, the only way I can think that they decided it was T1 at her age (born 1956) would be from a blood test on her autoimmune system.

Do MP's have blood??

That's a direct question to any MP's out there. The answer will almost certainly be five minutes of waffle about how important blood is to each and everyone of us and everyone should have access to it and it sounds like a good idea as long as it is circulating properly and within the confines of the law.

Question Time tonight, watch it and substitute the "blood" question for storms, taxes or the EU and see if i'm wrong. :) Oh, I think George Galloway is on tonight so it should be entertaining!
 
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Garr

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An intolerance, to me, means a bad case of wind! Think it's a wee bit more serious.......
 
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