Diabetes - 7 Common Myths surrounding Diabetes and Diabetic Treatment
Diabetes like most other diseases, has an awful lot of wrong information surrounding it. We have put together 7 of the most common Myths associated with Diabetes and Diabetic Treatment.
1. That if you eat too much sugar it can actually cause diabetes.
No one really fully understands the cause of diabetes, although eating excessive sugars is definitely not one of the causes of diabetes. The general belief is that Diabetes is actually generic, and can be triggered by certain life style and environmental factors. Although of course it could be argued that if you eat excesses of sugar, then this could lead to weight gain, and being extremely overweight is certainly one factor that is known to increase your risk of developing type II Diabetes. It is not the sugar, but the excess weight though.
2. If you suffer from Diabetes you should not eat any sweets or chocolate.
Diabetes need not stop you eating these things, or indeed anything else like cakes, sweet desserts etc, but these must be eaten in moderation and form part of a healthy diet regime. It is never healthy to overeat foods that contain lots of sugars and fats, but this is equally important for the non diabetic sufferer as it is for the diabetic sufferer.
3. You have to follow a special Diabetic Diet if you suffer from Diabetes.
You just need to ensure that you follow a normal balanced diet i.e. a diet that is low in fat, and contains only moderate amounts of sugar and salt. Adding Whole grain foods, fruit and vegetables to your diet is also beneficial. A Diabetic Diet need not be any different to a non diabetic diet.
4. Diabetic sufferers should only eat small amounts of carbohydrate.
Again Diabetics need only to ensure that they include carbohydrates in their diet, as it is from carbohydrates that your body gets much of the glucose that is required for energy. Carbohydrates also include fibre, and as long as the carbohydrate intake is balanced with other foods, and they do not go over board on portion size then there should be no problems.
5. Diabetes is contagious.
There is absolutely no truth in this whatsoever. You cannot catch diabetes in the same way that you can catch a cold. It his however believed that diabetes sufferers can be genetically predisposed to the disease which can be triggered by environmental factors. These environmental factors include viruses and drugs (including antibiotics). It is therefore possible that catching a common illness, or treating that illness with antibiotics, could lead to the onset of diabetes, but only in a person who has that underlying predisposition to Diabetes.
6. Diabetes sufferers are prone to catching colds and flu.
There is no evidence at all to indicate that a person who suffers with diabetes is any more, or any less likely than someone else to catch a cold or flu. However, illnesses of this nature can often interfere with levels of blood sugar, and therefore make the management of diabetes more difficult so diabetes sufferers are encouraged to try to avoid catching such illnesses. In particular it is a good idea for diabetic sufferers to have an annual flu jab.
7. An insulin dependant diabetic is at more risk of high blood pressure and hardening of the arteries.
There is not any evidence that insulin causes either high blood pressure or hardening of the arteries, although in early tests there was some suggestion that insulin may well play a part in the processes associated with the triggering of the disease. Time has however shown that this is not the case.
As with many diseases there are lots of myths surrounding the treatment of diabetes, but these are the most common ones. 
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