The saying “eating pumpkin can lower blood sugar” has been circulating in folklore, leading many diabetic patients to consider pumpkin as a necessary food for every meal, and even as medicine, thinking that the more they eat, the faster their blood sugar drops. As a result of this blind and radical approach, the blood sugar of these patients has increased instead of decreased. I have even come across a patient who stopped using glucose-lowering drugs and simply ate pumpkin to lower their sugar and almost lost their lives because of high blood sugar. So what is the effect of pumpkin on diabetes? Today I will explore with you the reason for it. Pumpkin, also known as golden melon, wheat gourd, bonobo, for the cucurbitaceae pumpkin fruit, according to the origin and botanical shape into three categories: Chinese pumpkin (commonly known as bonobo, melon, etc.), Indian pumpkin (commonly known as shoot melon, churning melon) and American pumpkin (commonly known as zucchini). In ancient and modern Chinese medical texts such as “Compendium of Materia Medica” and “National Compilation of Chinese Herbs”, there is no record of pumpkin as a treatment for diabetes. In the Compendium of Materia Medica, it is only recorded that “pumpkin tonifies the middle and benefits the qi, and more than one eats it to develop foot odor and jaundice”. Pumpkin as a vegetable is rich in nutrients, such as carbohydrates, protein, dietary fiber, vitamins, carotenoids, pectin, and potassium, iron, magnesium and other trace elements. Its sugar content varies from 3% to 15%, depending on the variety and the growth period. However, pumpkin has a glycemic index (GI) of 75, which is a high glycemic index food. After eating high glycemic index food, people can easily digest it and absorb it at a high rate, which will be converted into glucose and enter the bloodstream quickly, which will promote a rapid rise in blood sugar after meals. In addition, there are many kinds of pumpkins on the market, and it is not easy to identify the sugar content of different kinds of pumpkins. Therefore, diabetics should be very cautious when consuming pumpkin. But why do many people spread the rumor that pumpkin can lower blood sugar? I found by reviewing the domestic and foreign literature published in recent years that the pumpkin polysaccharide component extracted from pumpkin can play a role in lowering blood sugar, and some studies found that it can significantly lower the blood sugar of mice in a diabetes model, and also has the effect of lowering blood lipids to some extent. However, its proportion in pumpkin is very small, so a large amount of pumpkin consumption can lead to an increase in blood glucose especially after meals. Therefore, it is very harmful for diabetic patients to eat large amounts of pumpkin, especially if the staple food is not reduced, and substitute pumpkin for diabetes medication. So how should pumpkin be eaten in order not to cause an increase in blood sugar, but also beneficial to the body? The first for the consumption of different growth periods of pumpkin on blood sugar is not the same, from the sugar content, young pumpkin for 1.3 ~ 5.7g, old pumpkin for 15.5g. old ripe melon so high sugar content, so that its available energy tops the melon vegetables. Therefore, the old pumpkin is food, young pumpkin generation vegetables. For sugar lovers, pumpkin has to eat young not old that. Secondly, pumpkin as a vegetable contains more water, sugar content only 3% to 15%, so despite its high glycemic index, but the glycemic load is not high, as long as the corresponding deduction of part of the staple food, you can not worry about causing an increase in blood sugar, so you only need to grasp the amount of food, used to replace part of the staple food, such as diabetic patients eat 100 grams of pumpkin minus 15 grams of staple food, you can avoid the shortcomings, feel free to eat pumpkin. . Eat 2 to 3 times a week, each time 100 to 200 grams are practical. To sum up, diabetic patients can eat pumpkin. Pumpkin can be part of a healthy diet for diabetics. But pumpkin is not a “cure” for diabetes. The sugar lovers pay attention to science, do not blindly exaggerate the role of its role, the noise of the main, instead of drugs. But also do not see pumpkin as a tiger afraid to get involved.