Sugar, with all its deliciousness, can wreak havoc on your system. Teeth. Brain. And insulin levels

Super Sweet

Can you have too much of a good thing? Yup, you sure can. Sugar, with all its deliciousness, can wreak havoc on your system. Teeth. Brain. And insulin levels.

Eating healthfully, avoiding excessive sugar, and exercising, can help protect your body from the dangers of too much sugar. One of those dangers is unfortunately an all-too-common medical condition in adulthood: type 2 diabetes.

What’s the Difference?

With type 1, there is usually a problem with insulin production. Insulin is an important hormone. It takes the sugar floating around in our blood after a meal, a sweet drink, or a snack, cleans it out of the bloodstream, and drives it into our cells. You can think of insulin as a key that opens the cells to allow the sugar in, leaving your blood with just the perfect amount of sugar — 60 to 100 mg/dl. (That number goes up after you eat, but then the insulin comes to work its magic, and your blood sugar quickly drops back to this healthy range.) When insulin isn’t working the way it should, the amount of sugar in the bloodstream climbs quickly, and the cells are sugar-starved. This is not a great situation, and it can cause lots of issues. Type 1 diabetes is treated with extra insulin.