Hello and

today's episode was your host, Monica Reinagle,

and today's episode was inspired by a recent study that on its face may surprise a lot of people, but maybe it shouldn't.

This study found that reducing the amount of sugar in the diet of healthy people did not improve their

H-A-1-C levels. That's a measure of blood sugar control over time. Now there's more I want to

say about this specific study, but I want to start by talking about why this

outcome seems so surprising and counterintuitive.

The statement that sugar is bad for us is one of the most

uncontroversial positions you can take these days. In fact, the only people really that are

going to push back against you are probably the trade organizations that represent sugar refiners and sugar-sweetened

beverage manufacturers. Because you know they've been feeling for a long time that they're being unfairly blamed and

scapegoated for the rise in obesity and other diet and lifestyle related illnesses.

Now there's no question that people with diabetes do need to carefully plan and manage their

intake of sugar and other carbohydrates.

That's because this disease disrupts the body's ability to regulate blood sugar levels in response to the dietary intake of carbohydrate foods.

For people with diabetes, eating too much sugar can result in high blood sugar levels.

And over time, that can lead to all kinds of other problems, everything from increased risk of heart disease to nerve damage, vision loss, even

amputation of limbs.

Because people with type 2 diabetes are usually advised and rightfully so to limit their

consumption of sugar it might seem logical that limiting sugar consumption

would also be a way for healthy people to reduce their risk of developing

type 2 diabetes in the first place. However, this may not be the case. On the

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