The very fact that the disease has received such importance says much about its prevalence worldwide.

And with the emergence of lifestyle-related Type 2 diabetes, there is every indication that as standards of living climb higher so does the risk.

There is another aspect of diet and diabetes that I wish to highlight.

I have noted the evolution of the prescriptive diet for diabetes over the decades. Time was —as literature reveals — that diets were strictly regimented and foods like rice and sugar were absolutely taboo. The current situation is radically different and far more liberal in terms of what is allowed in diet. Diabetics today are advised to follow a varied diet that includes all the major food groups.

I am accustomed to receiving numerous requests by patients who seek personalised diets suited to their lifestyle. In fact, such needs have led to the birth of the DAFNE approach.

This approach teaches you to adjust insulin doses according to the food that you want to eat. The patients are taught to count carbohydrates and match it with the insulin dose required.

Diabetics today have access to many foods made especially for them. Food manufacturers are using polyols — sugar alcohols such as sorbitol, mannitol, lactitol — and no calorie sweeteners to create foods for diabetics. Aspartame and Sucralose are two such molecules being used extensively in the making of “diabetic foods”. Unfortunately there is a flip side to this. These foods tend to be very popular with diabetics who then tend to believe that the most important item for them to eliminate from their diet is sugar.

Thus, instinctively, they tend to rely on foods labeled “sugar free”. Quite often, people believe that such foods do not raise blood sugar levels and are calorie free. It is important to remember that a sugar-free label simply means that the food item does not contain sugars in the form of monosaccharides and disaccharides.

The thing that gets ignored is that this “sugar free” food is quite likely to have a high fat and calorie content. These foods that have a high fat and carbohydrate content can be harmful if consumed in excess. The fat and the carbohydrates will increase blood sugar levels since the body metabolism can get affected.

My prescription to all diabetics is to forever stay alert and keep track of carbohydrate and fat content of all food they consume — sugar-free or otherwise. Of course, we must remember that fats and carbohydrates are needed even by diabetics but in a regulated fashion according to their individual diet plans.

As a rule, any food item with 11 to 20 gms of carbohydrates would count as one serving. This will help all diabetics to follow their personalised dietary plans and they may actually get to eat some desert too!

nsingh.rxpress@expressindia.com