Is sugar killing our grandkids?

The diet here in Scotland was traditionally oatmeal and fish
and the odd hare but that was over 100 years ago.
I was looking at the old census records and (no they didn't say what they ate) but what was interesting is that between 1841 when the men came across from Ireland to work on the sailing ships in Port Glasgow, by 1851 they were working at the sugar factories with the slave connections as we know
Fowler's sugar house in the town dated pre 1820.
Nobody was fat but they were poor. Now the poorer you are, the fatter and sicker you are. It doesn't seem fair at all.
Sorry I am going off topic and I don't know what the answer is apart from in the words of private Frazer in Dad's army - We're doomed.

Here is a picture of Port Glasgow in the 19th century. Those are probably my cousins in the photo.

dogsmother do you mind if I ask how long it took you, to lose 2 stone in weight? I am prediabetic and would love to shift at least a stone. I don't eat pasta, rice or potatoes, but still eat bread. I am also partial to wine, which I know I ought to cut down on if I'm to shed the pounds.

Elegran I echo lemongrove in repeating that sugar does NOT cause diabetes

It doesn’t cause type 1 diabetes, but it contributes to developing Type 2 diabetes. Excessive added sugar in the diet leads to glucose intolerance & blood sugar levels increase as a result. That’s essentially what Type 2 diabetes is.

Peasblossom The trouble with reducing sugar has been those awful sugar substitutes that get used instead. Ugh! And they have health implications too. They can cause really bad allergies

Artificial sweeteners aren’t the only alternative to using sugar.
Training yourself out of a sweet tooth by gradually using less sugar, eating smaller portions of treats such as chocolate or cake, or limiting your number of intakes per day works too.
It can be done.

Quite an aversion to sweet stuff in my family, none of us except DS1 has a sweet tooth.
Chocolate never in the house and even some very sweet fruits are disliked.
DGS takes a piece of soft cheese for his morning break and only SIL eats sweet stuff.
No idea why but it goes back a couple of generations, my Mother is the same and remembers her Grandmother disliking sugar.
At the beginning of lockdown when DGS was making Lemon Drizzle cake as an Olympic sport all the tenants in the upstairs apartments were loving it.

16.25 Lemongrove I'm glad you wrote this. Lots of studies have shown groups of thin vegetarians who suffer with high levels of diabetes.

Hetty58

Geoff56, I believe it's quite crazy to just focus on sugar. Yes, we're killing our grandchildren. After all, we're living on a dying planet.

My retired scientist friend believes that we passed the point of no return back in the 1970s. So, unless a miracle happens, we can only slow down the destruction. We probably won't, though, being human, therefore inclined towards short-sightedness.

Hetty52 are you referring to co2 levels?
Have you read any of prof Lovelocks books?

People with type 2 diabetes are not all overweight/obese or eat too much sugar either ( though can be.) I hardly touch sugar ( added) and watch all carbs closely but still have diabetes type2.It’s usually genetic.Am not obese either.

Farmor15

I agree that people eat too much sugar and a lot is hidden in processed food. However, humans naturally have a sweet tooth and once sugar became easily available, we’ve eaten it!

When I was a child, most people took at least 2 teaspoons of sugar in a cup (not mug) of tea and lots of tea was drunk. Babies were given sweetened tea in bottles and soothers dipped in honey. Dinner was always followed by pudding - dishes like golden syrup pudding and treacle tart which I would now regard not very nutritious. Jam sandwiches were common and some children were given bread sprinkled with sugar.

I’m not suggesting this was a good diet, just that sugar isn’t a new problem. What is more recent is obesity, caused by too wide availability of cheap calories- often savoury things like chips and pizza. And lack of exercise. When you see photos of children and young people in 50s and 60s they look very skinny, despite their sugary diet.

I agree with what you say about childhood meals but of course nobody ate between meals and certainly not in the street. There was not an abundance of fast food and ready meals and, as you say, most important of all, children got lots of exercise through walking to and from school and playing outside, all day in the holidays. I can only recall one fat child in my primary school class and two in my grammar school year.

I don’t think I’m too bad with the sugar janeainsworth, I was when younger but the sugar shortage of the 1970s really did me a favour because I stopped taking sugar in drinks and baking cakes became a distant memory ?

It’s just that when I do fancy a bit of cake or something I want it to be really good to eat. A moment of enjoyment. What with sugar substitute and toppings made with vegetable oils, it’s often just Ugh!

Probably just as well.

Don't know about the. diabetes etc, do know that the biggest cause of children aged 5-9 admissions to hospitals is tooth decay www.rcseng.ac.uk/news-and-events/media-centre/press-releases/hospital-admission-tooth-decay/?utm_campaign=627266_FDS+September+Newsletter&utm_medium=dotmailer&utm_source=emailmarketing&dm_i=4D4N%2CDG02%2C117V3I%2C1I69Y%2C1
The cost to the NHS must be huge.
But the answer is really simple don't feed children sweets and sugary drinks. I know it's hard as a GP you sometimes want to give them a treat, but make it something else.

Lemongrove People with type 2 diabetes are not all overweight/obese or eat too much sugar either ( though can be.) I hardly touch sugar ( added) and watch all carbs closely but still have diabetes type2.It’s usually genetic.Am not obese either

I agree, and there’s a very moving TED talk by a doctor who developed Type 2 himself, despite not being overweight etc. He talks about how he used to blame patients for their condition until he developed it himself.

But I think it’s accepted that in many people diet has been a contributing factor to glucose intolerance.

It makes we shake my head in despair. Yes I understand that the businesses want to sell their goods so they will keep producing sugary "treats" as long as we the public keep buying them.
Health announcements tell us how bad they are and Jamie Oliver did his best to change our dreadful National diet and yet we still ignore the warnings at our peril!
I am sure, on a personal level, we each have a story of giving up sugar, not liking it, always cooking from scratch with no additives etc and yet it continues.
I have John Yudkin's book somewhere in the attic called pure, white and deadly which was published in 1972. Sugar. It's killing us. Why do we eat so much of it? What are its hidden dangers?

Obesity. poverty and misery are closely linked and the sooner we truly tackle all three on a national scale, the better.

I noticed, to my horror, that gifts arriving for Christmas at the GP's surgery were all boxes of chocolates! and at the Leisure/sports centre a big jar of lollipops free for the children.

Yes I think we are killing our grandchildren.

I absolutely agree Lemongrove, but once a disease gets a bad name because in can be caused by lifestyle factors, everyone with it is damned. Non-smokers get cancer, but the connection puts a real burden onthose who do. A close friend who has always had a tiny appetite and has always been stick thin was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes at 40.

On the connection between obesity and poverty, that has existed for a long time. In the late 1940s when I was about 6, we moved to a house close to a big council estate and we all used the same baker. I asked my mother why there were so many fat women in the bakers and my mother's reply was that in poor households all the good food went to the men and children and the women ate mainly bread marge and sugar sandwiches.

It is the grandchildren and great grand children of these women, asill living in poverty who feed the whole family on cheap, cheapest junk take aways, because it is the cheapest way to eat.

Learning to cook well on a small budget requires a willingness to explore new ingredients, spend time shopping well and carefully and a knowledge of food and cooking.

Read Jack Monroe's books on what living cheaply when you have little money entails.

janeainsworth

Lemongrove People with type 2 diabetes are not all overweight/obese or eat too much sugar either ( though can be.) I hardly touch sugar ( added) and watch all carbs closely but still have diabetes type2.It’s usually genetic.Am not obese either

I agree, and there’s a very moving TED talk by a doctor who developed Type 2 himself, despite not being overweight etc. He talks about how he used to blame patients for their condition until he developed it himself.

But I think it’s accepted that in many people diet has been a contributing factor to glucose intolerance.

There's also ongoing research on the role of cortisol in Type 2 diabetes. It's been known for some time that there's a correlation between stress and insomnia and diabetes. Chronic stress releases cortisol, which triggers the release of glucose from the liver.

There's also research on insulin resistance. The problem is that if the body isn't using insulin to get glucose into the tissues, more insulin is released, which eventually wears out the pancreas.

T2 diabetes isn't simply a condition caused by eating too much sugar, although high levels of circulating sugar will also cause too much insulin to be released.

www.diabetes.org.uk/research/our-research-projects/midlands/stress-hormones-and-risk-of-type-2-diabetes#:~:text=Some%20people%20produce%20too%20much,changes%20in%20blood%20glucose%20levels.

I wish people would get over the idea that T2 diabetes is some kind of glutton's disease.

PS. One source of sugar which many people don't realise they're eating is high fructose corn syrup, which is added to foods as a thickener.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-fructose_corn_syrup

That’s interesting, thanks Growstuff.
I agree about HFCS. In the States they seem to be more aware of it and lots of things are labelled ‘no high fructose corn syrup’.
Here though it masquerades as invert sugar or glucose syrup.

Antonio I did dm you.
This is a good informative thread.