How much sugar should a diabetic eat

Counting carbohydrates, or carbs—keeping track of the carbs in all your meals, snacks, and drinks—can help you match your activity level and medicines to the food you eat. Many people with diabetes count carbs to make managing blood sugar easier, which can also help them:

• Stay healthy longer.
• Feel better and improve their quality of life.
• Prevent or delay diabetes complications such as kidney disease, eye disease, heart disease, and stroke.

If you take mealtime insulin, you’ll count carbs to match your insulin dose to the amount of carbs in your foods and drinks. You may also take additional insulin if your blood sugar is higher than your target when eating.

Salad dressing, yogurt, bread, spaghetti sauce. Sugars are added to many foods during processing, and added sugars mean added carbs. To spot them, check the ingredients list for words ending in “ose” (such as fructose or maltose) and any name that includes “syrup” or “juice.”

What are the different types of carbs?

There are 3 types of carbs:

1. Sugars, such as the natural sugar in fruit and milk or the added sugar in soda and many other packaged foods.
2. Starches, including wheat, oats, and other grains; starchy vegetables such as corn and potatoes; and dried beans, lentils, and peas.
3. Fiber, the part of plant foods that isn’t digested but helps you stay healthy.

Sugars and starches raise your blood sugar, but fiber doesn’t.

How are carbs measured?

Carbs are measured in grams. On packaged foods, you can find total carb grams on the Nutrition Facts label. You can also check this list or use a carb-counting app to find grams of carbs in foods and drinks.

For diabetes meal planning, 1 carb serving is about 15 grams of carbs. This isn’t always the same as what you think of as a serving of food. For example, most people would count a small baked potato as 1 serving. However, at about 30 grams of carbs, it counts as 2 carb servings.

Try to eat about the same amount of carbs at each meal to keep your blood sugar levels steady throughout the day (not necessary if you use an insulin pump or give yourself multiple daily injections—you’ll take a fast-acting or short-acting insulin at mealtimes to match the amount of carbs you eat).

This sample menu has about 1,800 calories, 200 grams of carbs, and about 13 carb servings.

Breakfast
½ cup rolled oats (28g)
1 cup low-fat milk (13g)
2/3 medium banana (20g)
¼ cup chopped walnuts (4g)
Total carbs: 65 grams, about 4 carb servings

Lunch
2 slices whole wheat bread (24g)
4 oz. low-sodium turkey meat (1g)
1 slice low-fat Swiss cheese (1g)
½ large tomato (3g)
1 TBS yellow mustard (1g)
¼ cup shredded lettuce (0g)
8 baby carrots (7g)
6 oz. plain fat-free Greek yogurt (7g)
¾ cup blueberries (15g)
Total carbs: 59 grams, about 4 carb servings

Dinner
6 ounces baked chicken breast (0g)
1 cup brown rice (45g)
1 cup steamed broccoli (12g)
2 TBS margarine (0g)
Total carbs: 57 grams, about 4 carb servings

Snack
1 low-fat string cheese stick (1g)
2 tangerines (18g)
Total carbs: 19 grams, about 1 carb serving

How many carbs should I eat?

There’s no “one size fits all” answer—everyone is different because everyone’s body is different. The amount you can eat and stay in your target blood sugar range depends on your age, weight, activity level, and other factors. A dietitian or diabetes care and education specialist can help you create an eating plan that works for your unique needs and lifestyle.

Ask your doctor to refer you to diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) services, where you’ll work with a diabetes educator to create a healthy meal plan just for you. You can also visit the Find a Diabetes Education Program in Your Area locator for DSMES services near you.

How can I find out more about carb counting?

Talk with your dietitian about the right amount of carbs for you, and be sure to update your meal plan if your needs change (for example, if you get more active, you may increase how many carbs you eat). Ask about tasty, healthy recipes that can help you stay on top of your carb intake—which will make it easier to manage your blood sugar levels, too.

12 Ways Too Much Sugar Harms Your Body

The Bitter Side of Sugar

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Sugar is sweet, but too much of it can sour your health. Whole foods like fruits, veggies, dairy, and grains have natural sugars. Your body digests those carbs slowly so your cells get a steady supply of energy. Added sugars, on the other hand, come in packaged foods and drinks. Your body does not need any added sugars.

How Much Is Too Much?

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The American Heart Association recommends no more than 6 teaspoons (25 grams) of added sugar a day for women and 9 teaspoons (36 grams) for men. But the average American gets way more: 22 teaspoons a day (88 grams). It’s easy to overdo. Just one 12-ounce can of regular soda has 10 teaspoons of sugar -- and no nutritional benefit.

Harm: Weight Gain

3/15

Sugar-sweetened beverages are a big source of added sugars for Americans. If you drink a can of soda every day and don’t trim calories elsewhere, in three years you’d be 15 pounds heavier. Putting on too much weight can lead to problems like diabetes and some cancers.

Harm: Heart Disease

4/15

One in 10 Americans gets 1/4 or more of their daily calories from added sugar. If you eat that much, one study found that you’re more than twice as likely to die from heart disease than someone who gets less than half as much. It’s not clear why. It could be that the extra sugar raises your blood pressure or releases more fats into the bloodstream. Both can lead to heart attack, stroke, and other heart diseases.

Harm: Diabetes

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Sugary drinks in particular can boost your odds for type 2 diabetes. That can happen because when sugar stays in your blood, your body may react by making less of the hormone insulin, which converts the food you eat into energy. Or the insulin doesn’t work as well. If you’re overweight, dropping even 10-15 pounds can help you manage your blood sugar.

Harm: High Blood Pressure

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Usually, salt gets the blame for this condition, also called hypertension. But some researchers say another white crystal -- sugar -- may be a more worrisome culprit. One way they believe sugar raises blood pressure is by making your insulin levels spike too high. That can make your blood vessels less flexible and cause your kidneys to hold onto water and sodium.

Harm: High Cholesterol

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Sugary diets are bad for your heart, regardless of how much you weigh. They can:

• Raise your so-called "bad" (LDL) cholesterol and lower the "good" (HDL) kind.
• Hike blood fats called triglycerides and hinder the work of an enzyme that breaks them down.

Harm: Liver Disease

8/15

Most packaged foods, snacks, and drinks are sweetened with fructose, a simple sugar from fruits or veggies like corn. Your liver turns it into fat. If you regularly pump fructose into your body, tiny drops of fat build up in your liver. This is called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease. Early diet changes can reverse it. But over time, swelling and scarring can damage your liver.

Harm: Cavities

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You know sugar rots your teeth. How? It feeds the bacteria in your mouth, which leave behind acid that wears away your tooth enamel. Sugary drinks, dried fruits, candy, and chocolate are common offenders. Sour candies are among the worst. They’re almost as acidic as battery acid! If you eat tart treats, rinse your mouth with water afterward or drink some milk to neutralize the acid.

Harm: Poor Sleep

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Too much sugar during the day can mess with your blood glucose levels and cause energy spikes and crashes. You may struggle to stay awake at work or doze off in class at school. In the evenings, a bowl of ice cream or cookies can pump you with sugar that can wake you up at night. It also can cut short the time you’re in deep sleep. So you may not wake up feeling refreshed.  

Possible Harm: ADHD

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It’s a common perception that sugar worsens the symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. But the link is unproven. More studies knock down the theory that sugar causes or worsens ADHD than support it. We don’t know exactly what leads to ADHD, but your genes probably play a large role.

Harm: Mood Problems

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Feeling down? Your sweet tooth may be part of the problem. Several studies have linked sugar and mental health problems. One of the latest showed that men who ate more than 66 grams of sugar a day -- almost double what’s recommended -- were 23% more likely to be diagnosed with anxiety or depression than men who ate 40 grams or less. Too much sugar could fuel depression through swelling, or inflammation, in your brain, which is more common in people with depression.

Harm: Gout

13/15

You may know that you can get this painful arthritis from eating too much red meat, organ meats, and lobster. The same goes for fructose. It can make uric acid build up in your blood, which in turn forms hard crystals in your big toe, knees, and other joints.

Harm: Kidney Stones

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You get these when chemicals in your pee turn into solid crystals. Your body flushes out some kidney stones without much pain. Others can get stuck in your kidney or another part of your plumbing and block urine flow. Too much fructose -- from table sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, or processed foods -- raises your chances for kidney stones.

Harm: Aging

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Sugary drinks may add years to your biological age. DNA called telomeres cap the end of your chromosomes to protect them from damage. Longer is better. Shortened telomeres may go hand in hand with age-related diseases like diabetes. One study found that people who drink 20 ounces of soda a day have shorter telomeres. Researchers figure that’s like adding more than 4 years to the age of your cells.

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Harvard Medical School: “The sweet danger of sugar,” ‘Eating too much added sugar increases the risk of dying with heart disease,” “Abundance of fructose not good for the liver, heart.”

American Heart Association: “Added Sugars.”

Harvard School of Public Health: “Added Sugar in the Diet,” “Soft Drinks and Disease.”

American Diabetes Association: “Getting Started with Type 2 Diabetes,” “Weight Loss.”

Open Heart: “The wrong white crystals: not salt but sugar as aetiological in hypertension and cardiometabolic disease.”

Cleveland Clinic: “Why a Sweet Tooth Spells Trouble for Your Heart,” How Strong Is the Link Between Inflammation and Depression?

National Health Services (UK): “Which foods cause tooth decay?”

Minnesota Dental Association: “Pucker Up! The Effects of Sour Candy on Oral Health.”

National Sleep Foundation: “Sweet Dreams: How Sugar Impacts Your Sleep.”

National Institutes of Health/Medline Plus: Causes of ADHD

Scientific Reports: “Sugar intake from sweet food and beverages, common mental disorder and depression: Prospective findings from the Whitehall II study.”

University College London: “High sugar intake linked with poorer long-term mental health.”

Arthritis Foundation: “8 Food Ingredients That Can Cause Inflammation,” “Fructose and Gout.”

National Kidney Foundation: “Kidney Stones.”

American Journal of Public Health: “Soda and Cell Aging: Associations Between Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Consumption and Leukocyte Telomere Length in Healthy Adults From the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys.”

The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: “Glycemic index, glycemic load, and blood pressure: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.”

How many grams of sugar can a diabetic consume in a day?

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