Mental Health & Resilience
Leadership Development
Physical Wellbeing
Workplace CultureNeed another reason to eliminate refined sugar from your diet?
Everything you eat is broken down into simple sugars, mostly glucose, which are then added to your bloodstream. This happens at a different speed, depending on the type of food. However, your body won’t use the glucose unless it receives a signal to do so.
That’s where insulin comes in. Insulin is a hormone produced by your pancreas, which tells the cells in your body to absorb the glucose.
This process regulates your blood-sugar levels. After a big meal, lots of sugar is available and so your body is signalled to use it. During exercise, your insulin levels drop so that you conserve the energy.
Diabetes is a disorder of this mechanism, where glucose is added to your bloodstream but never used by your cells. This leads to high blood-sugar levels, low energy, and a range of long-term health problems. There are many different causes of this disorder, and many of them are not well understood, but we do know that there are two main types of diabetes which result.
Type 2 is the most common. It involves a mix of genetic and metabolic factors, and lifestyle factors such as diet and physical activity are strongly associated with risk — but diabetes is not caused by diet and low exercise alone. Once you have this disorder, it can be managed but not cured.
You’ve probably heard that being overweight is linked to this type of diabetes. Being overweight is one of several risk factors, alongside genetics, age and other metabolic factors, rather than the sole cause.
A number of studies have looked at the association between sugary drinks and diabetes risk. A meta-analysis of eight prospective studies covering more than 310,000 participants found that people who drank 1–2 servings of sugar-sweetened beverages a day had a 26% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who drank less than one serving a month (Malik et al., Diabetes Care, 2010).
Many cases of Type 2 diabetes are associated with modifiable lifestyle factors, so there’s a lot you can do to support your health by improving your diet and activity levels. A good first step is to reduce added sugar.
We’d love to teach your staff about cooking with healthier fats and recognising added sugars. Our healthy eating program options include Nutrition Seminars.
