I know it doesn’t ‘cause’ it, per se, but it’s still a ‘factor’ (or can be, rather) yet it seems some disagree with that description.

Big ag here, responsible consumption of sugar and corn-based sweeteners may provide health benefits.

I would say that it is technically misleading, but it's misleading in the way that your telling your kid to do a thing "because I told you so".

There is depth and nuance available in that conversation, but it requires effort to express it and explain it completely.

Not really. Large influxes of sugar put a lot of strain on the bodies ability to regulate blood sugar levels. It's not surprising that when we regularly consume way more than our ancestors would have that things go south.

Yes

No its not misleading because sugar consumption is a known risk factor.

If you said sugar consumption leads to type 1, that would be an outright lie.

Gotta pump those corn subsidies somewhere.

Is it ‘misleading’ to say that consuming sugar can lead to type 2 diabetes?

I think it’s misleading as stated. At a minimum “excess consumption of sugar can lead to diabetes” would be somewhat more reasonable.

In isolation it implies a more direct connection between the two when the reality is other factors are much higher indicators such as genetics, excess body weight, and physical inactivity.

So in a list of those factors it’s more reasonable than as a standalone statement, but then when excess consumption of anything, along with physical inactivity, is going to lead to excess body weight, it seems a little redundant.

Its misleading in the same way as saying 'crossing the road can lead to getting hit by a car.'

Is it ‘misleading’ to say that smoking cigarettes can lead to heart disease and cancer?

Is it ‘misleading’ to say that drinking alcohol can lead to liver disease?

Is it ‘misleading’ to say that consuming red meat can lead to high cholesterol?

It all depends on a lot of very nitpicky things like your definitions of "consume", "can", "lead to", and "misleading", but in general, if you apply the same lens to each question, you get the same answer.

I think that possibly is the most ‘balanced’ position I’ve seen so far

Yes, because it's ambiguous.

Define sugar.

Define consume.

It's a blanket statement without nuance.

Also everyone consumes sugars in some form - i.e. Carbohydrates.

The simpler the carb, the greater the volume, the more of a concern/risk.

Such ambiguous statements are a major problem with the medical community these days, as all sorts of things get communicated without any quantification.

Things like you're at a greater risk of X because of Y.

OK, how much greater? 60%? Or 0.006%? Is that absolute risk or relative risk?

The blood pressure debate is awash with this problem. As is the realm of biologics (used for autoimmune/autoinflammatory diseases) when looking at increased risk for infections. Yes, there's an increased risk, but across the board of all biologics that increase is something like 1 case in 5000 man-years - with no determination if that's truly because of the biologic or because they study participants already have immune dysregulation

And for specific biologics and specific diseases, there's no demonstrable increase in risk, based on massive meta-analysis.

The devil is in the details.

Kind of. Just about anything can lead to just about anything else. I mean, there's all-l-l-l sorts of zany causal chains in this wide world. Dropping out of college can lead to becoming one of the richest men in the world, after all. It would be misleading to advise people to drop out of college in order to become rich. There were a lot of additional qualifiers to that story, just as there are lots of additional qualifiers you should mention regarding sugar and diabetes.

I'd prefer "ultra-processed, non-whole foods & beverages that especially contain added sugar beyond naturally-occurring density and absent of regulating soluble fiber increases diabetes risk" but yeah

IMO, it's only misleading in that it doesn't express the quantity needed to really negatively impact your health. A single candy bar ain't gonna lead to diabetes. But eating 50 a day very well could.

consuming sugar can lead to type 2 diabetes

Not misleading, that's factually correct. However, it's that specific type of generalised statement people often take issue with and nitpick to death; especially if they like sugar.

Also loving all the questions you're posting lately, they're interesting and starting proper discussions and disagreements.

Can you elaborate?

Which part?

Oh, sorry, I didn’t explain clearly. How is it generalised? And what might you think is a more specific example of a statement stating the same thing? (Thanks for the compliment btw I try to inspire engaging conversations)

My understanding is excessive sugar consumption reveals type 2 diabetes. The underlying cause tends to be genetic and excessive sugar consumption accelerates the arrival of symptoms.

It's like how you can be allergic to bees your whole life and just never get stung by bees.

Its thus not completely misleading to say excessive consumption of sugar may lead to diabetes, like bee stings can lead to an allergic reaction.

Oh right. There's nothing wrong with generalised statements at all; in fact they're mandatory for communicating. We can't explain the whole world every time we speak. They work really well in face-to-face conversations or over the phone.

But people in online spaces, especially Lemmy and Reddit, often miss implications, see nuance as weakness, and will jump on it. It's just the nature of the platform. Some people are like this in real life too, but it's easier to just "talk it out" and clarify what you meant if they misunderstood.

Personally, I just accept that people will take issue with my comments and deal with it. But I'll break down which parts of your statement were generalised.

consuming sugar can lead to type 2 diabetes

• What kind of sugar? The implication is added refined sugar, but people with nutrition backgrounds might take offence. There's many other kinds like whole fresh fruit is considered protective.
• How often does it need to be consumed? The implication is people eating significant amounts of added sugar per day, I think 50g (1.7oz) is the current upper limit recommended; but people who have 1tsp sugar in their coffee in the morning might take offence. A small amount is usually fine.
• Is sugar the only cause? The implication is that sugar is just one of many risk factors, but some people might read it as sugar being the only cause. There's many factors that can lead to type 2 'beetus, such as: lack of exercise, obesity, genetics, comorbidities, etc.

So, a tighter, more specific version might look like:

Consuming excessive refined sugar can increase your risk of developing type-2 diabetes.

Can't poke as many holes in that, but it hardly rolls off the tongue. Again nothing wrong with your version at all, just explaining why some people might have taken issue with it.

That’s fair, I guess

Sugar is bad for almost every part of our body. For example, sugar that makes its way to your skin cells has been linked to early wrinkles in your skin. Sugar in your "eye" cells can lead to worsening eye problems. This is a lifetime scale though so you won't usually see immediate affects. Just look up papers about the effects of consuming sugar on the human body. I once did a deep dive. I am type 2 diabetic myself.

Now I wonder what caused someone to downvote this...

Yes, in any statement "can lead to" does a lot of heavy lifting. There's a big leap between "I added a grain of fructose to my tea last month" to "I added a grain of rice to my HFCS brother this meal too"

If you don't intend to correct those that you know will misunderstand you, yes.

It also doesn't help that there are many health influencers out there who do make outrageous claims, so it's not always clear that the "sugar causes diabetes" isn't being followed by "that's why I don't let my kids eat carrots, because they might as well be eating candy".

I should buy more carrots. They tasty. Good with any dip like hommus

Had to research this one a bit. There is no proof someone can be immune to type 2 diabetes.

Your statement seems to stand because of this. I was originally thinking you would need a qualifier like some or most people, but no research supports that.

Thanks for researching. Any specific citations?

Well I was just researching evidence of genetic immunity on the premise that your statement wouldn't be accurate if it included everyone. I certainly did not do an exhaustive study so I may have missed something.

Across the articles it appears there may be no smoking gun in regards to genetics one way or the other with obesity and age being the biggest risk factors.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3746083/

https://hms.harvard.edu/news/protective-mutations-type-2-diabetes

If it doesn't, then what does?

People are arguing all sorts of other causes like obesity, genetics, etc.

Fair enough, thanks for that

Would it happen without a trigger?

Diet high in saturated fats leads to insulin resistance by clogging the insulin receptors AFAIK

Here's a good video by nutritionfacts.org on the mechanism.

I would argue no, but it seems others know differently

Your body uses macronutrients in an order that I presume is most to least dangerous

1st: alcohol

2nd: sugars/carbohydrates

3rd: fat

Hardly at all: protein

The fat problem comes from eating a high fat, high carb diet, where the carbohydrate load prevents use of the fats.

Fats are carried around your body in low density lipoprotein (LDL cholesterol). When the fat is used it's fine the LDL is regularly emptied, renewed, refilled. When fat usage is suppressed by carbohydrates the LDL is never emptied, never renewed, never refilled. The LDL fails and breaks into small fragmentary LDL. The SDLDL is the stuff that fucks you up

I'm pretty sure the sugar is casual in obesity too — fructose which is half of cane sugar is exclusively converted to body fat

Obesity from sugar in diet, genetics doesn't make sense unless humans have hit some form of hyper evolution.
Type 1 is genetics, relatively rare, type 2 can be influenced by genetics, but avoided by diet.

I would still argue that that means sugar consumption can lead to type 2 in some sense, even if it’s not the direct cause, perhaps an indirect cause.

The fat problem comes from eating a high fat, high carb diet, where the carbohydrate load prevents use of the fats.

This a gym bro explanation, but many cultures eat a high carb diet and don't get fat or diabetic. What you do and how much you eat matter.

You're saying high fat high carb isn't bad because some places have high carb low fat diets and do fine. That doesn't follow.