The bitter taste of sugar

By Tomlin Paul

Sugar, as we know it in common use, is a brown, fine, grainy substance which we put in our tea and juice and use to make pudding and such delights. You have thousands of sensors called taste buds on your tongue, some of which are geared at picking up that sweet taste of sugar in your food.

Now, if food passes these taste buds and you don't taste it as sweet, don't be deceived! A lot of what you eat will change into sugar as it passes through your mouth and later in your stomach. So, surprise! That bread you had for breakfast, the two servings of rice and the big slice of yellow yam that you had for lunch did in fact enter your bloodstream as sugar.

The sweet taste of urine!

Our bodies need sugar primarily as a fuel, just like a car needs gas. Blood sugar is usually kept in a healthy range through a set of hormones sending signals in response to our intake and activity. When that control is lost, you end up with lots of sugar in your bloodstream, but can't really use it properly.

Like the flooded carburettor of the older model cars, it is hard to start your engine and you can't get the energy to drive smoothly! With all of that sweet blood, your kidneys cannot cope, and they start to send out the excess sugar in your urine. This condition is called diabetes mellitus, a term which has Greek origins, meaning a siphoning or 'quick passing through of honey sweet liquid'.

Galen, an ancient Greek physician, had at one time called the condition 'diarrhea urinosa', given how much urine patients produce. Well, I am happy that they have since sorted out these terms! In a diabetic patient who is well out of control, the urine passed is sweet, and ants tend to follow it if it is put down.

A bitter life

Blood sugar that remains outside the normal range takes a toll on your body over time. So, you move from a deceptively simple-looking problem of 'sugar in the urine' to a more involved set of problems arising from high sugar circulating over and over in your bloodstream.

Diabetes that is uncontrolled literally affects the whole body and must be treated with respect. Eyes, kidneys, nerves, heart, blood vessels, gums, feet, bowel are all affected over time. For many years, it has been in the top three causes of death for us in Jamaica. So, all that blood sugar can make life quite bitter.

Here's to a better life

As much as sugar is at the heart of this discussion, diabetes is a complex disease and its prevention and treatment is not as straightforward as cutting out sugar, or worse yet, drinking something bitter!

At 50 and over, you are more likely to have this condition than in your earlier years. So go have a discussion with your doctor about your risk, get tested, and work to reduce this risk and get your sugar to a safe target. You must do what it takes to avoid the bitter taste of sugar.

Dr Tomlin Paul is a family physician at Health Plus Associates in Kingston; email: yourhealth@gleanerjm.com.