• Guest - w'd love to know what you think about the forum! Take the 2025 Survey »

Is Sucrose (sugar) half a carb, as is half fructose?

Jasperville

Jasperville

Well-Known Member
Messages
149
Type of diabetes
Type 2
Treatment type
Tablets (oral)
Picking up on an earlier thread, if I am counting carbs on a low carb diet, surely sugar is less of a carb than all starches, because it is half glucose and half fructose, and fructose has no effect on blood sugar. This fits with my experience of pure sugar having less effect per gram on my blood glucose levels than bread, pasta, potatoes etc.
 
Er,, not sure where you got that from. Fructose is probably worse than sucrose, and it definitely DOES affect blood sugar. How it has less effect on you is, frankly baffling, unless you're actually not comparing equal amounts.
 
Fructose rarely have much of an impact on BG but will mess up and damage your liver. Thus sugar doesn't affect BG in a big way. Starch does, as it turns into glucose, pure and simple, and 100% of it. So starch is much, much worse for BG than sugar.
 
Fructose often has a lower immediate impact, but it is used by the body differently, goes straight to the liver and contributes to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

This has only become widely known in the last few years. There was a while when people thought that fruit sugar, agave nectar and crystals of fructose we excellent alternatives to sugar. Bought it myself, sadly. But now we know better.

If you are wondering what relevance non-alcoholic fatty liver disease is, it is caused by visceral fat (that is internal fat in and around the heart, liver and pancreas) collecting and scarring the liver. It affects the organ function reducing the liver and pancreas' capacity to deal with blood glucose. Some of us (T2s) are able to diet and lose this visceral fat to the extent that our organs return to adequate function and we 'reverse' our diabetes. Contrary to popular belief, subcutaneous fat has a lot less impact on the likelihood of developing T 2 than visceral fat.

So, basically, fructose = bad even though it has less immediate effect on blood glucose. :)

Having said that, my body spikes bg higher from 10g carbs in bread than it does from 10 g carbs as sugar.
 
Ah, it was my thread that I believe sparked this, and the conversation here is very enlightening. I had no idea about fructose and now my relatively worse bs issues with grains vs sugar make more sense.
 
Yes Glink, your earlier thread sparked this one off.

Despite the evils of Fructose, effect on the liver, raising Triglycerides etc, I now increasingly feel that not only have type 2 diabetics been misled for 40 years by being advised to cut out sugar but have loads of complex carbs (starch), but in fact, for most diabetics, starch is far worse than sugar.

I am trying to stick to the advice in "blood sugar 101" that BG above 7.7 can be damaging. For me I will go above this with about 30 grams of carb in one meal (though can get away with 40 grams carbs sometimes if with loads of fat, just stays above 7 for much longer before coming down).

I am only human, so sometimes stray above my self-imposed carb limit when my will power melts away. Believe it or not, I think it is better for me to cheat with a Yorkie bar (60 grams = 36 grams of sugar approx = 18 grams of glucose/18 grams of fructose), rather than a piece of toast (approx 22 grams of starch = 22 grams of glucose eventually).

I am type 2 for last 17 years, generally terrible control. Hba1c in January was 10.5, GP suggested insulin. I started low-carbing, Hba1c end of March 7.9.

I did a home Hba1c test (called a1cnow) last week, which suggests Hba1c now 6.3.

I haven't just done this with low carb. Also on various prebiotics, FOS powder, resistant potato starch, bitter melon, Gymnema, fenugreek, pterocarpus marsupium, alpha lipoic acid (definitely reduced neuropathy feelings). I am certain bitter melon particularly has helped with my post-prandial readings (used a freestyle libre for 2 weeks which was a real eye-opener).

With all the supplements and potato starch taken about 30-40 minutes before main meal, 30 grams of carbs usually sends me up to 7.5-8.5, whereas before it would have been 10-12 I think. However, trying hard to have less carbs than this.
 
This is why many of us go easy on all carbs, not just the simple ones, but the complex ones too.
 
Back
Top