Fruits can harm a diabetic person

How can fruits harm a diabetic person?

Fruits are usually considered beneficial for human health and why not?! Fruits are full of anti oxidants that improve a person’s health. However when it comes to diabetic patients, this generalization of consumption of fruits being “healthy” doesn’t always remain true. This is because fruits contain variable amounts of natural sugars. Diabetes is a condition that is generally accompanied with low amounts of insulin. Insulin is the hormone that is responsible for keeping the blood sugar levels in check. Thus, simply speaking, diabetes causes a high blood sugar level most of the time. Let us look at some of the reasons why diabetic people should be careful about the type and quantity of fruits they consume.

Advised sugar consumption

At some point, almost everyone wonders if the amount of sugar they are consuming is too much. Be it processed bakery products or soft drinks, currently, majority of people consume loads of sugar. To answer the question “how much sugar is too much?” let us look at the advised amount of sugar that can be consumed. According to American heart association, following amounts are the limits for sugar consumption:

1. men = 36 gram
2. women = 24 gram
3. from 2–18 years = less than 24 grams

Now I know you may be thinking how is the information above useful for diabetics. The complication for patients of diabetes is that the minimum sugar consumption can vary from patient to patient, according to the severity of the disease hence, to give a general idea, it is always be expected to be lower than this but to know the exact limit, one must consult with their doctor.

Natural sugars are always good, right?

Absolutely wrong! Although we might think that unlike processed sugars, natural sugars do not produce the harmful effects in diabetics but, just like processed sugar natural sugars are also broken down into fructose and glucose. Hence, essentially the final result of both sugars’ consumption is quite similar. This point is important since, Fruits contain natural sugars so, the point here is that if someone with diabetes thinks that they can just keep munching on their favorite fruit just because they think “fruits are healthy” then they should think again. It should be quite clear by now that natural or processed, sugars are eventually broken down to same molecules that can worsen diabetes.

Why restricting sugar amounts are necessary in diabetes

As mentioned before, diabetes is a condition characterized by high blood sugar levels. And you may think, why having a high blood sugar level is such a bad thing? The thing is high sugar amounts in blood can lead to devastating results. It can result in kidney damage if sugars remain high for long time period. High blood sugar can also damage eyes. This is what we call diabetic retinopathy. So, to summarize there are multiple health complications that can result due to high sugar levels.

Fruits with high amounts of sugar

Monitoring the fruit intake becomes particularly important when dealing with high sugar fruits. Let’s look at :

• Diabetic or not, we all know resisting a mango is quite cumbersome. A single mango has 45 grams of sugar, which exceeds way over the advised amount to say the least.

• The next one in our list: Grapes. We might not realize it while popping them in our mouths one after another, one cup of grapes contains 23 gram of sugar.

• Moving forward, cherries are our next fruit to look out for. One cup of cherries can contain almost 18 grams of sugar.

Some other fruits to look out for, that have high sugar content includes: bananas, watermelon, pears and figs. Although they all have less sugar amounts then the above 3, but still they can prove problematic if eaten carelessly by diabetics.

The whole point of discussion here is that although fruits generally are good for health. But a diabetic person cannot eat large amounts of fruits without monitoring the sugar intakes, because the damage caused by high sugar doesn’t differentiate if the sugar came from processed products or “healthy fruits”, the damage is all the same. We often see sweet tooth patients fulfilling their cravings with an excuse that fruits are healthy. But that is not true in this case. One thing worth mentioning here is that fruits are an integral part of our balanced diet so, to say that fruits should be excluded from diet altogether if you are a diabetic, is entirely wrong. Now if you are a diabetic and you are thinking what the solution is, the answer is simple, pick out the fruits that have low sugar amounts and consume them while monitoring your daily sugar intakes. In fact, some high sugar fruits can also be part of your diet if you regulate the amount so that your daily intake doesn’t exceed the limit.

Article written by Talha Safder

References

Fruits That Are Highest in Sugar (no date). Available at:  (Accessed: 8 May 2021).

10 Best Fruits and Vegetables High in Antioxidants (no date). Available at: (Accessed: 7 May 2021).