Thread by @ChrisSerong

Sugar, fruit and diabetes: an experiential thread. So I have t1 diabetes, for 25+ years, my body produces zero insulin by itself. Insulin is required to get sugar from the blood stream into primarily muscle cells where it can be used for energy.

So all the insulin I have in my body, I inject. I experience how it all works. Overnight I have a basal dose of Levemir, it provides a background level. With meals, I inject the rapid acting Humalog that helps me metabolise the actual food I eat when I eat it.

I need to inject to metabolise any meal, but not all snacks. This may be unique, I suspect my insulin sensitivity is quite good, but I do not need to inject any insulin to be able to metabolise fruit. None. If the sugar was off the charts you betcha ass I'd need to.

Hypoglycemia is where your blood sugar levels drop too low. The cure is eating sugary food, it brings your levels up. To be clear, this is the prescribed treatment, it is what you are supposed to do. Soda or candy works quickest.

Fruit is useless to me in this regard. Fruit doesn't work, it does not bring the blood sugar levels up quick enough, not even the fruits we think of as being the sweetest: bananas, grapes, watermelon etc. It is not an effective intervention.

Snacking on fruit will spike my blood sugar levels as much as snacking on roast beef. If you believe fruit really is a serious issue for you, research fructose malabsorption.

Also, fruit doesn't seem to have the required total calorie load to necessitate insulin injections for me. Even a bowl of fruit salad, if I inject any insulin when I eat it, I'm probably just going to get hypoglycemia not long after, as my blood sugar drops too low.

But also it needs to be said: fruit is not the enemy and insulin is not the enemy either; the goal for any person is not to not need insulin, it is for the insulin in your body (whether injected or naturally occurring) to function well. It also shuttles protein around.

I, a diabetic, fear no fruits.

But it does need to be said insulin sensitivity varies from person to person and from time to time, and that's essentially why we don't have mechanical pancreases yet. There's really no way to automate a dosage with sensitivity varying in incredibly fine degrees.