Would eating candy as a child reduce diabetes risk

[Dan]

I was just reading a bit about type II diabetes. Basically your body has so much glucose in the bloodstream that the pancreas kills itself trying to produce insulin.

So what I was wondering was if having a lot of sugar as a child <10 would strengthen your pancreas while it was still devloping. Because it would be more adaptable at that age and it would be more able to get used to producing a lot of insulin. I was one of those kids that could eat a packet of fun dip, a candy necklace, two tootsie pops and a box of gobstoppers. I used to count up the change I had and figure out how much candy I could buy with it. But since I was 13 or so I have had almost no desire for candy.

I was just wondering if it's something similar to how growing up on a farm tends to give you a stronger immune system because you are exposed to more pathogens and bacteria. My mom was a Japanese peasant farmer child after the war and she never gets sick.

Or maybe kids just like candy because sugar naturally occurs in fruits that you need for vitamins and stuff??

 

[Stigmata]

I don't think it would help all that much, if at all, and might actually ruin the pancreas earlier. The pancreas probably isn't designed to adapt to that much change, whereas the immune system is built specifically to adapt to any foreign threats in the bloodstream (or at least, it tries to adapt).

 

[Solaris]

No, it would make you more prone to it.

 

[Remus]

It wouldn't help, if anything it would just make you loose your teeth earlier on. Yes I'm speaking from personal experience.

 

[Operational]

Or maybe kids just like candy because sugar naturally occurs in fruits that you need for vitamins and stuff??

Back in the day sugar was hard to come by and so it was best to eat as much as you could when you had the chance. Which is why it tastes so good, it was our body's way of encouraging us to eat lots of it. Nowadays there is no shortage of sugary delights but the evolutionary desire to eat a lot of them has not gone away.

 

[Dekstar]

I would have thought type II diabetes is a genetic fault in the pancreas, causing it to produce too little insulin when your body needs it.

 

[PvtRyan]

Would eating a child reduce diabetes risk?

 

[Dan]

but why do kids like sugar so much and not adults?

 

[ríomhaire]

Would eating a child reduce diabetes risk?

You eat their pancreas