Do you really get diabetes if you like sweets?

Recently, I often hear the news that there are 20 million people in the diabetic reserve group. Also, as a result of the health checkup, there will be many people who have been told by the doctor that if they stay like this, they can get diabetes. Diabetes mellitus in Japanese is type 2 diabetes, in which more than 95% of Japanese people have impaired insulin secretion.

There is no convincing evidence that stress, alcohol, and sweets, which are often thought to be the cause of diabetes, directly cause the disease. There are still many unanswered questions about the cause of diabetes. According to the Japanese Diabetes Association, if the fasting blood sugar level is less than 110 mg/dl and the glucose tolerance test (the value 2 hours after glucose intake) is less than 140 mg/dl, it is considered normal. A fasting blood sugar level of 126 mg/dl or more or a glucose tolerance test value of 200 mg/dl or more is considered diabetes. And those who fall between diabetes and normal are considered reserve groups.

Diabetes is scary because when blood sugar levels are high, blood vessels are damaged and there is a high risk of myocardial infarction or cerebral infarction, and serious complications such as blindness, kidney disease, and neuropathy are easy to occur. In Japan, about 3,500 people a year become blind due to diabetic retinopathy. In addition, diabetic nephropathy is the disease with the highest rate of artificial dialysis by disease, and more than 10,000 people start new dialysis every year. Neurological disorders due to diabetes have serious symptoms, as well as numbness in the hands and feet or incontinence that cannot hold urine or stool.

Diabetes mellitus has no symptoms, so it is difficult to cure it after serious symptoms appear. For this reason, if the blood sugar level is high during the health checkup, the doctors scare them as if something serious is about to happen. However, it should be remembered that lowering blood sugar levels with drugs is much more dangerous. (Makoto, 49-50p)