The Top 5 Things You Love That Will Give You Diabetes

If you’re anything like me, you grew up with a dark specter hovering over your family: diabetes. My grandparents, tíos and tías and cousins would all talk about this disease like it was a pesky fly. Shoot, I even got to hear about diabetes from my friends’ family and relatives. Now that I think about it, strangers I meet on the street have even told me their diabetes stories because it seems like every single Latino I’ve ever met (granted I grew up betwixt California and Texas, so we’re talking a larger proportion here) either has diabetes, knows someone who does, or is on the path to developing diabetes.

It’s almost a tragic birthright — almost. Our diabetes expert Dr. Jeff Kreisberg has written extensively for NewsTaco about diabetes (here, here, here, here, here and here for example) and one thing he points out repeatedly is that diabetes is not an inevitability. Provided, of course, you take pains to control what you eat.

Tragically, in my family we love lots of things that are synonymous with diabetes. So, we wanted to make a list to help us all guard against that scary specter, diabetes.

1.) Soda, or juice.

This one is sad, even if you only drink a little. Dr. Kreisberg noted, “In reality, while three servings of fruit a day reduces your risk of diabetes by 18%, a glass of fruit juice raises your risk by 25%! The same holds true for the fruit-flavored water.” And we all know soda is bad.

2.) Bread, pan dulce and flour tortillas.

You know, bread = sugar = diabetes face.

3.) Potatoes, lots of them.

Dr. Kreisberg says, “Roughly half of the pounds a healthy, non-obese American gains over the years could be chalked up to eating more potato chips.”

4.) Lard or butter.

This is tragic, but as the doctor said, “Any fat that turns to solid when cooled should be avoided.”

5.) Candy, ice cream, anything with corn syrup in it.

Sadly, sugar is both yummy and bad for you, especially if you are predisposed to the disease.

Luckily, as Dr. Kreisberg is wont to point out, diabetes doesn’t have to be a death sentence. Here’s more info on that.