India has more than 100 million diabetics and over 136 million pre-diabetic people, prompting the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to dub the country as the diabetes capital of the world. Living with disturbed sugar metabolism is a reality which an urban India has to live with. To understand issues related to sugar metabolism, diabetes and their management, we spoke to Dr Bimal Kumar , Bangalore-based physician.
Excerpts: Sugar is sweet but why is it considered worse than fats? What does an elevated sugar level do to the body? Sugar is sweet because our taste buds like them because of evolutionary reasons. Sugar gives us instant energy in calories. It powers our cells that make up all the muscles and tissues, and it is the fuel that the brain uses to function.
But sugar-lovers take too much sugar, resulting in a lot of weight gain. Later on, they become obese. Obesity is one of the factors that are closely linked with diabetes, particularly type 2 diabetes.
However, it doesn’t matter what type of diabetes one has, it can lead to excess sugar in the blood. Whatever you eat, its end-result essentials that the body uses are carried by the blood. But the body has evolved to function in a particular range of vitals.
In the case of sugar-producing foods, insulin takes care of its levels in the blood. Insulin helps sugar enter individual cells, lowering its levels in the blood. Diabetes is a health condition when this balance is disturbed and the amount of insulin, secret.