How Much Fruit And Its Fructose Is Too Much For People With Diabetes?

People with diabetes need to be concerned with the amount of sugar they consume because they have a problem processing sugar correctly. This had led to sugar becoming a very scary word.

The same concern is there for people who don’t have diabetes, because non-diabetics don’t want to become diabetics.

So because of this the sugar/diabetes paradigm has been established. It is a paradigm that is an over-simplistic view of the relationship between sugar and diabetes that has been established through fear, a lack of understanding, and also manipulation.

In reality diabetes has become a concern primarily because of the consumption of processed foods containing synthetic sugar, the over use of additive sugar, and believe it or not the heavy consumption of animal fat.

As far as sugar is concerned synthetic and additive sugar is the problem, which has put all sugar consumption under the microscope. The thing is the consumption of fruits and the sugar they contain is not an issue for people with diabetes, and science supports this assertion.

Most dietary guidelines put out by nutrition organizations recommend the consumption of fruit because of all the health protecting benefits they provide,^[1] but some healthcare professionals recommend restricting fruit consumption because of the sugar they contain.

Please remember that most doctors have very little nutrition education and their opinion on nutrition is often no better than the average layperson’s opinion.

This study showed that the reduction of fruit consumption had no effect on diabetes.^[1] This Harvard Health Letter^[2] stated the nutritional problems with fructose and sucrose come from when they are added to food, and that fruit consumption is beneficial.

In this study^[3] people were made to eat a ridiculous amount of fruits a day for 12 to 24 weeks. Twenty servings of fruit a day, and the participants consumed 200 grams of sugar from fruit a day.

There were no adverse side-effects. A more recent study^[4] put people on a twenty servings of fruit a day diet and they had no adverse side-effects.

Well the only thing that did happen that some people might consider adverse is the participants in the study had very good bowel movements as a result of participating in the study.

[1] A S Christensen, L Viggers, K Hasselström, S Gregersen. Effect of fruit restriction on glycemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes–a randomized trial. Nutr J. 2013 Mar 5;12:29.
[2] Top 5 ways to reduce crippling hand pain. Harv Health Lett. 2013;38(9):4.
[3] B J Meyer, E J de Bruin, D G Du Plessis, M van der Merwe, A C Meyer. Some biochemical effects of a mainly fruit diet in man. S Afr Med J. 1971 Mar 6;45(10):253-61.
[4] D J Jenkins, C W Kendall, D G Popovich, E Vidgen, C C Mehling, V Vuksan, T P Ransom, A V Rao, R Rosenberg-Zand, N Tariq, P Corey, P J Jones, M Raeini, J A Story, E J Furumoto, D R Illingworth, A S Pappu, P W Connelly. Effect of a very-high-fiber vegetable, fruit, and nut diet on serum lipids and colonic function. Metabolism. 2001 Apr;50(4):494-503.