Myth 1: Diabetes is mainly caused by eating sugar or too much sweets
In fact, diabetes is a chronic systemic metabolic disease caused by a long-term combination of genetic and environmental factors. Risk factors for diabetes include genetics, a high-calorie, high-fat diet, low physical activity, obesity, increasing age, and psychological stress.
Myth 2: Diabetes is treated with a diet that focuses on controlling sugar or staple food intake
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This is false. The key to diabetic diet is to control total daily dietary calories.
Myth 3: If you take more glucose-lowering medications, you can skip diet control
The correct approach should be that diet therapy is the foundation of comprehensive diabetes treatment.
Misconception 4: Diet therapy is starvation therapy
Dietary therapy is about appropriately limiting total caloric intake while maintaining a balanced ratio of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and other nutrients. It is never about starvation or severe partial eating. As a result of eating too little and not enough nutrients, the body’s resistance decreases, which can easily lead to various infections. When starving, protein and fat are decomposed in large quantities, which can easily lead to ketoacidosis. In addition, when people are overly hungry, glycogen decomposition and gluconeogenesis increase, which can lead to reactive hyperglycemia after hypoglycemia, resulting in fluctuations in blood sugar, which is instead detrimental to blood sugar control.
Myth #5: Coarse grains contain less sugar, so it’s okay to eat more
In fact, the carbohydrate content of staple foods such as flour, rice, millet and corn is similar, ranging from 75% to 80%. However, because millet and corn are rich in dietary fiber, they can slow down the absorption of glucose in the intestine. Therefore, there is a certain difference in the degree of postprandial blood glucose increase when consuming the same amount of coarse grains and fine grains. For example, if you eat 100 grams of corn, 80% of its carbohydrates are converted into blood sugar, while the same amount of flour is converted into 90% of blood sugar, i.e. the “glycemic index” of the two is different. In addition, roughly processed flour has a low sugar content (about 60%), and its “glycemic index” is also low. At present, many of the “diabetic foods” on the market are made from such flours. For these reasons, people with high blood sugar may want to replace fine grains with coarse grains. And usually, coarse and fine grains with.
Myth #6: Fruits contain a lot of sugar and should not be eaten at all
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After finding out about diabetes, many patients are afraid to ask for fruit. In fact, some fruits are relatively low in sugar (e.g., apples and pears contain 10% to 14% sugar, watermelon contains 4% sugar), and are mainly “fructose”, a small amount of which does not affect blood sugar too much, but the key is moderation. For patients whose postprandial blood sugar is less than 10 mmol/L, they can eat 1 apple or pear per day, but they should be eaten between meals, and the calories of fruits should be counted in the total calories. If a larger amount of fruit is eaten, this portion of calories should be deducted from the total diet. In other words, eat fewer staple foods.
Myth #7: You can’t eat sweets with diabetes, but you can eat more sugar-free foods
Sweet food mainly refers to sucrose. In fact, sweet things are not limited to cane sugar, there are many natural or synthetic sweeteners available, such as stevia, xylitol, fructose, aspartame, saccharin, etc., which are not high in calories and can be used appropriately by diabetics. The “sugar-free moon cakes” and “sugar-free yogurt” sold in the market are mostly sweetened with xylitol, which can increase the sweetness of the food without increasing the heat of the food. The company’s main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers.