Diabetes and Coca Cola?

BKC

I am 17 years old. I am 6 ft tall and weigh around 155 with a BMI of 18 which is in the optimum range for my height. I am not overweight and exercise regularly.

However, my diet is quite poor. I drink a load of cans of Coke. I would say I have drank an average of 21 cans of coke a week for the last year or so. My mom wants to bring me to the doctor next week to get checked for diabetes. I don't feel any different than I ever have and I googled the symptoms and I have none of them.

Could I have diabetes? Will continuing this lifestyle give me diabetes? Is it possible my body has adapted to my sugar intake and produces enough insulin to cope with this?

I am aware that Coca Cola is very bad for me and am trying to cut down on it.

*Not sure if this constitutes as medical advice. I'm looking at it more as dietary advice, but whatever you think mods.

Tigger

BKC wrote: »

I am 17 years old. I am 6 ft tall and weigh around 155 with a BMI of 18 which is in the optimum range for my height. I am not overweight and exercise regularly.

However, my diet is quite poor. I drink a load of cans of Coke. I would say I have drank an average of 21 cans of coke a week for the last year or so. My mom wants to bring me to the doctor next week to get checked for diabetes. I don't feel any different than I ever have and I googled the symptoms and I have none of them.

Could I have diabetes? Will continuing this lifestyle give me diabetes? Is it possible my body has adapted to my sugar intake and produces enough insulin to cope with this?

I am aware that Coca Cola is very bad for me and am trying to cut down on it.

*Not sure if this constitutes as medical advice. I'm looking at it more as dietary advice, but whatever you think mods.

in my not medical opinion you drink a lot of coke

Dka e80

BKC wrote: »

I am 17 years old. I am 6 ft tall and weigh around 155 with a BMI of 18 which is in the optimum range for my height. I am not overweight and exercise regularly.

However, my diet is quite poor. I drink a load of cans of Coke. I would say I have drank an average of 21 cans of coke a week for the last year or so. My mom wants to bring me to the doctor next week to get checked for diabetes. I don't feel any different than I ever have and I googled the symptoms and I have none of them.

Could I have diabetes? Will continuing this lifestyle give me diabetes? Is it possible my body has adapted to my sugar intake and produces enough insulin to cope with this?

I am aware that Coca Cola is very bad for me and am trying to cut down on it.

*Not sure if this constitutes as medical advice. I'm looking at it more as dietary advice, but whatever you think mods.

switch to coke zone problem solved

siochain

it’s very unhealthy to be consuming that amount of sugar, artificial flavourings and artificial colouring on a daily basis. You may not have diabetes now but could be on the way to have it.

switch to coke zero won't be much better.

Etc

There are 9 spoonfuls of sugar in each can of regular coke, that's 189 spoonfuls of sugar per week you are consuming before any other food. You may not have any symptoms now but continue as you are and you will experience health issues in future.

I know it tastes great, but the concentrates are classed as hazardous materials when being shipped to bottlers, that should give you some idea of what you are consuming albeit in diluted form.

As a poster above said, try coke zero and cut down on the full fat stuff.

Rossin

I can think of 3 friends off the top of my head who used to drink about 2 litres a day for god knows how many years, they all managed to give it up eventually and had no side effects long term

my brother was drinking a few bottles a day and the parents wouldn't leave him alone about getting diabetes so he went and got checked and doc said he was perfectly normal! he's giving it up now though to sort his weight out. addictive stuff i wouldn't take the chance! You know its bad for you so do your best to cut it out!

BKC

I was doing a bit of looking around on the internet and I came across the following information quite a few times and I'm wondering if there is any truth to it?

Diabetes is not caused by what you eat.

Excessive sugar consumption does not cause diabetes.

If you do not have diabetes genes, you can have all the sugar you want and never become diabetic.

But if you do have diabetes genes, you can completely abstain from sugar and you could still develop diabetes.

Transform

Riiiiiight kind of goes against basic understanding of basic hormone production

PickledLime

BKC wrote: »

I am 17 years old. I am 6 ft tall and weigh around 155 with a BMI of 18 which is in the optimum range for my height. I am not overweight and exercise regularly.

However, my diet is quite poor. I drink a load of cans of Coke. I would say I have drank an average of 21 cans of coke a week for the last year or so. My mom wants to bring me to the doctor next week to get checked for diabetes. I don't feel any different than I ever have and I googled the symptoms and I have none of them.

Could I have diabetes? Will continuing this lifestyle give me diabetes? Is it possible my body has adapted to my sugar intake and produces enough insulin to cope with this?

I am aware that Coca Cola is very bad for me and am trying to cut down on it.

*Not sure if this constitutes as medical advice. I'm looking at it more as dietary advice, but whatever you think mods.

I'm not giving medical advice or anything, but to me simple common sense would dictate that consuming that much refined sugar is a bad idea for your health, regardless of it being a contributory factor to diabetes, rotted teeth, dietary deficienicies, etc. You know it's an unhealthy habit, so why not kick it before you do damage? Try drinking fizzy water and you'll find part of your addiction is probably the bubbles.

As an aside, i'm diabetic and would happily trade my insulin resistance for a Cola-free diet!

btkm8unsl0w5r4

While it is unlikely that you would develop diabetes at your age from this alone, after the doctor go to the dentist cause that much coke will certainly have rotted your teeth badly. The bacterial in you mouth love a constant source of liquid sugar and produce acid causing decay. The pH of come is also optimal to erode the enamel off your teeth.

Full sugar come is good for only one thing....cleaning engine parts.

yoyo

Diet coke is sugar and calorie free, drink allot of it myself, no issues. Just don't drink it after 9 or I can't sleep lol

Nick

siochain

Abel Tart Logging wrote: »

.

Full sugar come is good for only one thing....cleaning engine parts.

Brilliant PSML

Wise Old Elf

Can't really comment on the diabetes issue, but I used to drink a LOT of coke. For general health, and teeth, cut down over the last while.
I took up coffee instead:eek:
No sugar or milk, so at least it's just caffeine! Would suggest it as an easy transition, just proper cafe coffee, not instant.;)

Hector Mildew

Disco Stuart wrote: »

Can't really comment on the diabetes issue, but I used to drink a LOT of coke. For general health, and teeth, cut down over the last while.
I took up coffee instead:eek:
No sugar or milk, so at least it's just caffeine! Would suggest it as an easy transition, just proper cafe coffee, not instant.;)

I thought the same about coffee but discovered it can raise levels of bad cholesterol.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6242467/ns/health-heart_health/t/coffee-cholesterol/#.UHXySbSwpvA

Wise Old Elf

Hector Mildew wrote: »

I thought the same about coffee but discovered it can raise levels of bad cholesterol.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6242467/ns/health-heart_health/t/coffee-cholesterol/#.UHXySbSwpvA

Ah crap! Thanks though, will check this out.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Diet Coke and coke Zero may have no sugar but they are very acidic (hence the nice taste) very bad for teeth.

Wibbs

Transform wrote: »

Riiiiiight kind of goes against basic understanding of basic hormone production

+1000. Type two diabetes is incredibly rare among populations on low sugar hunter gatherer type diets. Funny enough type 1 is rarer too.

rubadub

Etc wrote: »

There are 9 spoonfuls of sugar in each can of regular coke

This is not particularly high, in case people thought it was. Last coke can I checked was 10.4% sugar.
Dawn orange juice is 10.6%
Tropicana grape juice is 17.6%
Avonmore regular milk 4.9%

These are natural sugars of course but still there. The OP is on 990ml a day, I imagine some here are on 2L of milk which is about the same amount of sugar. I am not sure if it would be processed differently but I in any "gallon of milk a day" threads I never saw much concern about diabetes.

Instead of cans you might change to bottles, once a can is open you have to finish it. If you are just quenching your thirst you might get in the habit of drinking water before drinking the coke, so you might intake less.

PickledLime

I'd imagine whatever sugar is used in Coke (been quite a while since i've held a can of it!) has a GI chart that looks like a spike. Too much of any sugar is bad for you, but the stuff in Coke is pure poison (is high-fructose corn syrup used here?).

If they're drinking 990mls of Coke a day, then they're getting about 100% of their RDA of sugar via this rubbish. If they say they have a 'bad diet' i bet they're intaking another 100% via sweets, sauces, flavoured junk, fruit, milk, etc.

mathepac

High=sugar drinks and high-energy drinks can be difficult to quit. Drinks with high-sugar and high-energy content combined can be even more difficult to quit.

The key to having a health-promoting diet is balance and anything that tips that balance needs to be reviewed.

If you are looking at preventing obesity / diabetes / other problems later in life, now is the time to adopt healthy eating and drinking habits. Because a young person's bad eating or drinking habits show no adverse health consequences now, that is not to say they are not storing up problems for the future. Chronic health problems develop over years and decades, not overnight.

mathepac

PickledLime wrote: »

... Too much of any sugar is bad for you, but the stuff in Coke is pure poison (is high-fructose corn syrup used here?)....

I forgot to mention that. This where a huge percentage of America's corn crop goes and it is now used in everything from pizza toppings, drinks, ice-cream etc and is lethal. The indications are that in certain US states the corn is GM, specialised to maximise fructose content. GM corn has been shown to cause cancer in rats and corn-sugar (rather than fat) as a food ingredient is a suspect in the obesity rise amongst children in the USA.

This corn and it's derivatives are also used in in cattle and chicken feed. "So nice you'll eat it thrice." The meat is corn fed, you'll cook it in corn oil and you put gravy / sauce on it that's also made from corn.

PickledLime

mathepac wrote: »

High=sugar drinks and high-energy drinks can be difficult to quit. Drinks with high-sugar and high-energy content combined can be even more difficult to quit.

The key to having a health-promoting diet is balance and anything that tips that balance needs to be reviewed.

If you are looking at preventing obesity / diabetes / other problems later in life, now is the time to adopt healthy eating and drinking habits. Because a young person's bad eating or drinking habits show no adverse health consequences now, that is not to say they are not storing up problems for the future. Chronic health problems develop over years and decades, not overnight.

Wise words indeed. Which is better? To cut out Cola because you want to preserve your healt, or to cut it out because you've developed life long complications and a few cans of the stuff can leave you unconscious?

PickledLime

mathepac wrote: »

I forgot to mention that. This where a huge percentage of America's corn crop goes and it is now used in everything from pizza toppings, drinks, ice-cream etc and is lethal. The indications are that in certain US states the corn is GM, specialised to maximise fructose content. GM corn has been shown to cause cancer in rats and corn-sugar (rather than fat) as a food ingredient is a suspect in the obesity rise amongst children in the USA.

This corn and it's derivatives are also used in in cattle and chicken feed. "So nice you'll eat it thrice." The meat is corn fed, you'll cook it in corn oil and you put gravy / sauce on it that's also made from corn.

Good post. I'm kinda curious as to what HFCS's penetration is like in Europe. Doesn't Coke over here still use raw cane sugar? (and isn't 'Mexican Coke' something of a luxury item over in the States as it uses precisely that?).

I've a good evening's Googling to do when i'm free this eve!

rubadub

PickledLime wrote: »

Coke is pure poison (is high-fructose corn syrup used here?).

Not used in Irish market coke. There is the odd shop around with US imports of various soft drinks which may have it, price is usually a lot higher.

gctest50

http://www.andykennyfitness.ie/sugar-in-drinks/

Soft drinks with a little heap of sugar in front of each for comparison.

Small carton of Ribena is surprising @ sugar per 288ml Carton = 30.2g

rubadub

gctest50 wrote: »

Small carton of Ribena is surprising @ sugar per 288ml Carton = 30.2g

Do you think its high or low? it works out at 10.5% sugar, I would have guessed it was around that, just like coke, 7-up, orange juice etc, typical sweetness of those.

He got lucozade is a weird one showing as low on that list

Carbonated Water,Glucose Syrup (25%) ,Citric Acid ,Lactic Acid ,Flavouring ,Preservatives (Sodium Benzoate, Sodium Bisulphite) ,Caffeine (0.012%) ,Antioxidant (Ascorbic Acid) ,Colour (Sunset Yellow)

Carbohydrate 17.2g -
(of which sugars 8.7g)

He should have included milk and regular juices in his list, though I know they are natural sugar leaving out the comparison make is seem a bit sensationalist, when it doesn't shock me in the slightest.

robodonkey

If you have never watched this, it is worth an hour of your time.

It's a lecture given by an MD in USofA detailing the harmful effects on humans of products containing high fructose corn syrup and cheap sugars.

I like it because it's not a tin-foil hat conspiracy theory, but a scientific analysis of what happens in the Krebs cycle when you overdo the cheap "easy access" calories in your diet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBnniua6-oM

Doug Cartel

As I understood it, the problem with HFCS was not really that it was more unnatural than other forms of sugar. The big problem is that it is heavily subsidised, therefore cheap, and therefore used way too much.

robodonkey

It actually metabolises in a different way to normal sugar (the MD describes the differences in the video), as well as being cheaper and therefore more widely used to mask all manner of bad food manufacturing processes.
That makes it a double whammy of badness.

Brian?

rubadub wrote: »

PickledLime wrote: »

Coke is pure poison (is high-fructose corn syrup used here?).

Not used in Irish market coke. There is the odd shop around with US imports of various soft drinks which may have it, price is usually a lot higher.

Hopefully it stays that way. HFCS is incredibly sweet and in pretty much everything here including bread.

Its funny, you can get Mexican Pepsi in some shops here. It's made with cane sugar instead of HFCS, it's a lot less sweet and a lot tastier.

Orla K

Hfcs is known as glucose-fructose here and I've noticed it in a few products here.

Two that come to mind are strawberry milk and those flora cholesterol reducing yoghurt drinks.

mathepac

Doug Cartel wrote: »

As I understood it, the problem with HFCS was not really that it was more unnatural than other forms of sugar. The big problem is that it is heavily subsidised, therefore cheap, and therefore used way too much.

Apparently one of the most heavily subsidised agricultural crops in the world it was seen as a way of keeping mom & pop farms in operation. The opposite happened with big business smelling big profits from subsidised crops and cheap livestock feed for the beef farms in Texas etc where the animals are born fattened and killed without ever seeing grass.

decosr1

I gave up drinking that muck a few months back when i got a set of braces fitted to me ould knashers. Used to have a lot of stomach ach's and pains and the like, thought i had an ulser or something but they have become so much less regular now since i gave it up drinking that stuff. My advice is to only drink it as a treat the odd time. your stomach will thank you for it

Momento Mori

My advice is to cut down on the coke and you'll be just fine.

I'm curious though, do you feel addicted to coke?

Hogan1

BKC wrote: »

I am 17 years old. I am 6 ft tall and weigh around 155 with a BMI of 18 which is in the optimum range for my height. I am not overweight and exercise regularly.

However, my diet is quite poor. I drink a load of cans of Coke. I would say I have drank an average of 21 cans of coke a week for the last year or so. My mom wants to bring me to the doctor next week to get checked for diabetes. I don't feel any different than I ever have and I googled the symptoms and I have none of them.

Could I have diabetes? Will continuing this lifestyle give me diabetes? Is it possible my body has adapted to my sugar intake and produces enough insulin to cope with this?

I am aware that Coca Cola is very bad for me and am trying to cut down on it.

[SIZE="2"]*Not sure if this constitutes as medical advice. I'm looking at it more as dietary advice, but whatever you think mods. [/SIZE]

Haven't really read through the thread except for the first page but the body is pretty advanced and capable or regulating insulin and from knowing people that consume similar amount as you and the main thing you should be worried about is your teeth. Obviously chronic high levels of insulin will stop you from losing any fat (if you are trying to).

siochain

Hogan1 wrote: »

Haven't really read through the thread except for the first page but the body is pretty advanced and capable or regulating insulin and from knowing people that consume similar amount as you and the main thing you should be worried about is your teeth. Obviously chronic high levels of insulin will stop you from losing any fat (if you are trying to).

Can you explain how the body is capable of regulating insulin in the presence of high sugar levels?

What does any level of insulin do to regulate blood sugar levels?

BKC

Momento Mori wrote: »

I'm curious though, do you feel addicted to coke?

Most definitely, yeah.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

siochain wrote: »

Can you explain how the body is capable of regulating insulin in the presence of high sugar levels?

What does any level of insulin do to regulate blood sugar levels?

siochain

Abel Tart Logging wrote: »

Has H&F turned into after hours.


Lets here your answer on the questions.

Brian?

Abel Tart Logging wrote: »

No more of that please. An insult by meme is still and insult.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Can you explain how the body is capable of regulating insulin in the presence of high sugar levels?

insulin and glucogon are the two hormones that regulates blood sugar, in the presence of high blood sugar the pancreas secrets insulin to push glucose into the cells (muscles, fat,etc) and lowers the blood sugar. Glucogon does to opposite. The balance of these two keeps your blood sugar within a very stable narrow range unless you are a diabetic, this is called homeostasis and our bodies are very efficient at it. In the presence of massive sugar volumes the kidneys will secret sugar in the urine until the sugar level is back under the control of insulin again, but thats an extreme or dieasesed (diabetic) state.


What does any level of insulin do to regulate blood sugar levels? See above


I didn't mean to insult I just can understand why you wouldn't google it if your question was serious.

jive

Abel Tart Logging wrote: »

The pH of come is also optimal to erode the enamel off your teeth.

ಠ_ಠ

siochain

Yes the original question was to find out if the poster really understood the effects of insulin as the post I felt was misleading. Regardless the question is very valid to open up a discussion on a H&F forum when compared to the majority of requests.

Anyway back to the topic

Abel Tart Logging wrote: »

insulin and glucogon are the two hormones that regulates blood sugar, in the presence of high blood sugar the pancreas secrets insulin to push glucose into the cells (muscles, fat,etc) and lowers the blood sugar.

Would you agree with?
The average person wouldn’t use up a lot of their muscle glycogen on a daily basis so the majority of the abundance of glucose we have circulating from carbs gets pushed into fat cells.

Hogan1 wrote: »

Haven't really read through the thread except for the first page but the body is pretty advanced and capable or regulating insulin and from knowing people that consume similar amount as you and the main thing you should be worried about is your teeth. Obviously chronic high levels of insulin will stop you from losing any fat (if you are trying to).

Since we couldn’t tease out a discussion on this I would say: yes the body is capable of pumping out insulin to regulate sugar and move it into fat cells, liver and muscles. With the majority for the average joe going to the liver and fat cells. In the long term that have serious consequences to our health.

Even low levels of circulating insulin will stop you from burning fat.

SheFiend

jive wrote: »

ಠ_ಠ

Can't believe this lasted four pages before someone pointed that out