# Sugar (sucrose)

Category: Foods & Substances

Also known as: sucrose, sugar, table sugar

Sucrose is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose that Ray Peat argued has been wrongly demonized as a cause of diabetes and obesity, when in fact it is polyunsaturated fats that are the primary drivers of metabolic dysfunction. Peat traced the historical vilification…

12 passages · 1 author · 2011–2021 · Most-cited: [Ray Peat](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/voices/ray-peat/index.md)

Canonical page: https://bioenergeticoracle.com/concepts/sugar-sucrose

## Synthesis

**Sucrose** is a disaccharide composed of glucose and fructose that Ray Peat argued has been wrongly demonized as a cause of diabetes and obesity, when in fact it is *polyunsaturated fats* that are the primary drivers of metabolic dysfunction. [Source 1, 4] Peat traced the historical vilification of sugar to John Yudkin's version of the lipid theory of heart disease, which blamed the fructose component of sucrose for elevated blood lipids, a theory that grew into a "cult" despite a lack of causal evidence. [Source 1] In contrast, Peat highlighted 19th-century physicians like William Budd and E. Kulz, who successfully treated wasting diabetics by adding large amounts of sucrose or fructose to the diet, observing that diabetics could assimilate fructose better than glucose and that it reduced glucose in the urine. [Source 1, 9]

Peat emphasized that **sucrose has a lower glycemic index** than pure glucose or starch, meaning it is less disruptive to the pancreas and does not stimulate insulin as intensely. [Source 2, 3, 7] The fructose half of the molecule is *anti-stress* and *anti-insulin stimulating*; it enters cells easily, promotes glycogen storage, and actually impedes the glucose component from overstimulating the pancreas. [Source 2, 7] This glycogen-stabilizing effect helps steady blood sugar over time, making a sugar-based diet "a little steadier" than a starch-based diet. [Source 2] Peat noted that adding sugar to the diet can increase the metabolic rate by twenty percent, allowing for weight loss by increasing heat production, provided one avoids the *polyunsaturated fats* that suppress mitochondrial respiration and block sugar oxidation. [Source 3, 5]

The true metabolic threat, according to Peat, is the **Randall Cycle**, where an excess of free fatty acids blocks the ability to metabolize sugar, leading to the oxidative stress and cellular damage characteristic of diabetes. [Source 4, 7] Free fatty acids suppress mitochondrial respiration, increase toxic free radical production, and the resulting lactic acid displaces carbon dioxide, making proteins more susceptible to oxidative damage—damage often misattributed to glycation by sugars but actually caused by reactive fragments of polyunsaturated fats. [Source 4, 12] Peat cited evidence that a deficiency of so-called "essential fatty acids" prevents toxin-induced and autoimmune diabetes, while **sucrose itself stimulates the regeneration of pancreatic beta-cells** and protects them from free fatty acid damage. [Source 4, 11, 12] Even feeding enough sucrose to cause fat deposition in the liver can protect it from oxidative stress. [Source 6, 11]

Peat distinguished the effects of sucrose from those of starch and glucose, particularly when combined with fats. In animal experiments, a 68% sucrose diet produced the least fat pad weight compared to diets with starch, fructose-glucose combinations, or fructose-starch mixtures, especially when corn oil was present. [Source 10] He warned that the worst dietary combination is pure glucose (from white flour) fried in polyunsaturated oil, which blocks cellular glucose oxidation, whereas a protective combination is saturated fat with fruit-derived fructose, as in ice cream with fresh fruit. [Source 12] Sucrose from fruit also arrives with **potassium**, magnesium, and flavonoids, minerals and anti-inflammatory factors that further support carbohydrate metabolism; potassium itself has an insulin-like action, helping cells take up glucose without requiring insulin secretion. [Source 2, 8]

Topically, sugar demonstrates profound healing properties. The practice of treating deep wounds, including diabetic ulcers and post-surgical infections, with honey or granulated sugar eradicates bacterial infections better than some antiseptics and accelerates healing with minimal scarring by optimizing collagen synthesis and extracellular matrix communication. [Source 6, 11] Peat maintained that in every tissue, it is the *failure to oxidize glucose*—not glucose itself—that produces oxidative stress, and that the active thyroid hormone T3 protects the heart by supporting glucose oxidation, with T3 production depending largely on glucose availability. [Source 6, 11] If overall nutrition is good, Peat concluded, white sugar is safe, very low in allergens, and can lower cortisol under stress, making it a protective substance rather than a poison. [Source 8]

## People also ask

### How does sucrose affect insulin differently than starch?

Peat argued that sucrose has a lower glycemic index than starch or pure glucose, so it stimulates insulin less intensely. The fructose component helps steady blood sugar and impedes the glucose from overstimulating the pancreas.

### Why did Peat blame polyunsaturated fats rather than sugar for diabetes?

Peat described the Randall Cycle, where excess free fatty acids block sugar metabolism and suppress mitochondrial respiration, causing oxidative damage. He cited evidence that polyunsaturated fat deficiency prevents diabetes, while sucrose protects pancreatic beta-cells.

### What healing properties did Peat attribute to sugar?

Peat noted that sugar or honey applied to wounds eradicates bacterial infections and accelerates healing with minimal scarring. He maintained that oxidative stress results from a failure to oxidize glucose, not from glucose itself.

## Related concepts

- [Fructose](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/fructose/index.md)
- [Mitochondria](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/mitochondria/index.md)
- [Age Pigment (Lipofuscin)](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/age-pigment-lipofuscin/index.md)
- [Atherosclerosis](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/atherosclerosis/index.md)
- [Butter](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/butter/index.md)
- [Cellular respiration](https://bioenergeticoracle.com/md/concepts/cellular-respiration/index.md)

## Cited passages

Passage numbers match the `[Source N]` markers in the synthesis above.

### Source 1 — Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.

Ray Peat · Article · 2012 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml

> William Budd in England, in 1867, who treated diabetes by adding a large amount of ordinary sugar, sucrose, to the patient's diet. Glucose was known to be the sugar appearing in the diabetics' urine, but sucrose consists of half glucose, and half fructose. In 1874, E. Kulz in Germany reported that diabetics could assimilate fructose better than glucose. In the next decades there were several more reports on the benefits of feeding fructose, including the reduction of glucose in the urine. With the discovery of insulin in 1922, fructose therapy was practically forgotten, until the 1950s when new manufacturing techniques began to make it economical to use.
>
> Its use in diabetic diets became so popular that it became available in health food stores, and was also used in hospitals for intravenous feeding.
>
> However, while fructose was becoming popular, the cholesterol theory of heart disease was being promoted. This was the theory that eating foods containing saturated fat and cholesterol caused heart disease. (My newsletter, Cholesterol, longevity, intelligence, and health, discussed the development of that theory.)
>
> A Swedish physician and researcher, Uffe Ravnskov, has reviewed the medical arguments for the theory that lipids in the blood are the cause of atherosclerosis and heart disease, and shows that there has never been evidence of causality, something which some people, such as Broda Barnes, understood from the beginning. In the 1950s, an English professor, John Yudkin, didn't accept the idea that eating saturated fat was the cause of high blood levels of triglycerides and cholesterol, but he didn't question the theory that lipids in the blood caused the circulatory disease. He argued that it was sugar, especially the fructose component of sucrose, rather than dietary fat, that caused the high blood lipids seen in the affluent countries, and consequently the diseases. He was sure it was a specific chemical effect of the fructose, because he argued that the nutrients that were removed in refining white flour and white sugar were insignificant, in the whole diet.
>
> Following the publication of Yudkin's books, and coinciding with increasing promotion of the health benefits of unsaturated vegetable oils, many people were converted to Yudkin's version of the lipid theory of heart disease, i.e., that the "bad lipids" in the blood are the result of eating sugar.

### Source 2 — Dr. Ray Peat, Day Two: Full Interview from On the Back of a Tiger

Ray Peat · Interview · Feb 18, 2021 · https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3yVUELD2ZA

> **Ray Peat:** The nutritionists in the 1970s started talking about the glycemic index in connection with the idea that sugar is the cause of diabetes and so on. And in looking, they were saying that it's good to eat foods that don't have such a high glycemic index on the idea that glycemia is what is harmful, causing diabetes. But the actual figures show that a pure starch is much more glycemic than a pure sucrose. Pure glucose and pure starch have the absolute perfection of raising your blood sugar. Sucrose is much lower, and when you test the components, the glucose half of the molecule It is just like starch, and the fructose part of the molecule can actually lower the insulin because it goes into your cells so easily and is converted. It promotes the production of glycogen when it's taken in ordinary physiological amounts. It raises your glycogen, helps to steady your blood sugar over time because the glycogen is available as soon as your blood sugar falls to oxidize. So the glycogen, the fructose part of the sucrose molecule that you find in most fruits is anti-stress, anti-insulin stimulating. and anti-obesity because it prefers to increase your glycogen stores and steady your blood sugar rather than stimulating insulin insulin stimulating fat synthesis as well as glycogen synthesis so it's a little steadier to have a sugar diet rather than a starch diet And besides, the fruits come with a high concentration of certain minerals, pretty much the balance of minerals that we have in our cells. a high potassium concentration, for example. You hear about bananas and orange juice as rich sources of potassium, but that's typical of any fruit or any cellular material. And so it's compatible with supplying the nutrients that we need. Potassium itself has an insulin-like action, helps the cells to take up and use carbohydrates, bypassing the need to secrete insulin so it's easy on the pancreas.

### Source 3 — One Radio Network: Ray Peat with Patrick Timpone — September 21, 2021

Ray Peat · Interview · Sep 21, 2021

> Yeah, the sugar in orange juice is mostly sucrose, which in itself is much less glycemic or insulin stimulating than the glucose that drives from starch. Okay, so pasta, bread and things like that, that's more of a glucose and that plays more... has an effect on the insulin. Yeah, there are charts of the glycemic index of foods and the starch and glucose are at the top and juices are actually down the list. Okay, so generally when folks want to lose weight, we get plenty of those questions, what are some things that you recommend that they do to take out and to put in, to lose weight? One of the things you want to do is stop eating the things that slow your metabolism, that inhibit your thyroid. And damage your mitochondria and block oxygen use and heat production. And the worst of those foods are the polyunsaturated fats. And the very high starchy foods like pasta are the next in line. But the proofer... accumulate in your body and turn off your thyroid in different ways and damage your mitochondria so that your ability to burn calories decreases as the polyunsaturated fat in the food is stored in your body. Canola, corn oil, soy, all of those are highly polyunsaturated and butter is a very relatively highly saturated food and so it can be fattening if you eat enough of it. Against a background of history of having eaten a lot of soy oil and so on, just adding a little coconut oil which is quickly absorbed and oxidized can increase your heat production. But the ability to produce heat from your food is the thing to pay attention to and sugar in a lot of experiments, just adding sugar to your diet can increase. your metabolic rate by twenty percent and so you can actually lose weight in eating. Increasing metabolism with sugar. Yeah, if you're shifting from a standard diet to high in polyunsaturated fat, shifting to include things like a lot of fruit, orange juice in particular, you can, keeping your calories at the same level, your metabolic rate is going to increase so that you'll be hotter, your temperature will not drop so low during the night and will tend to stay around the normal 98.6 during the daytime. Mm-hmm, yeah. So, so the proof is in Dr.

### Source 4 — Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.

Ray Peat · Article · 2012 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/glucose-sucrose-diabetes.shtml

> When a normal person, or even a "type 2 diabetic," is given a large dose of sugar, there is a suppression of lipolysis, and the concentration of free fatty acids in the bloodstream decreases, though the suppression is weaker in the diabetic (Soriguer, et al., 2008). Insulin, released by the sugar, inhibits lipolysis, reducing the supply of fats to the respiring cells.
>
> Free fatty acids suppress mitochondrial respiration (Kamikawa and Yamazaki, 1981), leading to increased glycolysis (producing lactic acid) to maintain cellular energy. The suppression of mitochondrial respiration increases the production of toxic free radicals, and the decreased carbon dioxide makes the proteins more susceptible to attack by free radicals. The lactate produced under the influence of excessive fat metabolism stimulates the release of endorphins, which are lipolytic, releasing more free fatty acids from the tissues. Acting through cytokines such as interleukin-6, lactate shifts the balance toward the catabolic hormones, leading to tissue wasting.
>
> Lactic acid itself, and the longer chain fatty acids, inhibit the regulatory enzyme pyruvate dehydrogenase (which is activated by insulin), reducing the oxidative production of energy. Drugs to activate this enzyme are being studied by the pharmaceutical industry as treatments for diabetes and cancer (for example, DCA, dichloroacetate).
>
> Oxidative damage of proteins is often described as glycation or glycosylation, but it really consists of many addition and crosslinking reactions, most often onto, or between, lysine groups. Carbon dioxide normally associates with lysine groups, so the destructive reactions are favored when carbon dioxide is displaced by lactic acid. The reactive fragments of polyunsaturated fatty acids are much more often the source of the protein-damaging radicals than the carbohydrates are.
>
> The importance of the fats in causing type-2 diabetes is coming to be accepted, for example Li, et al., recently (2008) said "The cellular link between fatty acids and ROS (reactive oxygen species) is essentially the mitochondrion, a key organelle for the control of insulin secretion. Mitochondria are the main source of ROS and are also the primary target of oxidative attacks."

### Source 5 — Sugar Myths 1 – Sugar and the Link Between Cholesterol.

Ray Peat · Transcript · 2011

> **Ray Peat:** It increases your ability to burn fat by 30 – 50% so you can eat much more without getting fat
>
> **Andrew Murray:** Of the sucrose as long as you stay away from the white rice and white flour?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yeah.
>
> **Andrew Murray:** So cake and candy so that’s worse for you than a fruit pie that you added a bunch of sugar to but the crust was a whole wheat crust that would be okay? Well even the grains and all the starches and beans. All of those starchy carbohydrates they all have a higher glycaemic index than fruit, honey and white sugar. So mostly you don’t even put white sugar, unless you put it in your coffee or lemonade or whatever… Or your icecream. What about ice cream? That’s mixed mostly with fat. Is that bad? Well no because there is no starch there and if we are talking about the glycaemic index and raising your sugar and causing obesity. Well I can eat plenty of ice cream but as far as calories goes… Right, it’s the fat. It’s the fat in the cream. But yeah if you decided you were going to eat sugar but not mixed with any carbohydrates… I eat fresh fruit and I make lemonade and I drink orange juice and I… Well I believe in fructose and I think that’s good. When I drink fruit juice, I drink it without any added sucrose but I dilute it with half water so I don’t get even that much fructose. I know there can be like 600 calories in sometimes a quart of juice that has no added sugar… The other thing is that when you have a fruit sugar or just any sugar, you should have it balanced with a fat and a protein so you slow release the sugar, so your liver can store it, so you can use it for longer, rather than a huge spike of sugar that then your sugar pumps out insulin and then it gets stored as fat. So if you have chocolate that’s a good way to have it?

### Source 6 — Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.

Ray Peat · Article · 2012 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/glucose-sucrose-diabetes.shtml

> In every type of tissue, it is the failure to oxidize glucose that produces oxidative stress and cellular damage. Even feeding enough sucrose to cause fat deposition in the liver can protect the liver from oxidative stress (Spolarics and Meyenhofer, 2000), possibly by mechanisms such as those involved in the treatment of alcoholic liver disease with saturated fats.
>
> The active thyroid hormone, T3, protects the heart by supporting the oxidation of glucose (Liu, et al., 1998). The amount of T3 produced by the liver depends mainly on the amount of glucose available.
>
> Animals that have been made diabetic with relatively low doses of the poison streptozotocin can recover functional beta-cells spontaneously, and the rate of recovery is higher in pregnant animals (Hartman, et al., 1989). Pregnancy stabilizes blood sugar at a higher level, and progesterone favors the oxidation of glucose rather than fats.
>
> A recent study suggests that recovery of the pancreas can be very fast. A little glucose was infused for 4 days into rats, keeping the blood glucose level normal, and the mass of beta-cells was found to have increased 2.5 times. Cell division wasn't increased, so apparently the additional glucose was preventing the death of beta-cells, or stimulating the conversion of another type of cell to become insulin-secreting beta-cells (Jetton, et al., 2008).
>
> That study is very important in relation to stem cells in general, because it either means that glandular cells are turning over ("streaming") at a much higher rate than currently recognized in biology and medicine, or it means that (when blood sugar is adequate) stimulated cells are able to recruit neighboring cells to participate in their specialized function. Either way, it shows the great importance of environmental factors in regulating our anatomy and physiology.
>
> "Diabetologists" don't regularly measure their patients' insulin, but they usually make the assumption that insulin is the main factor regulating blood sugar. In one study, it was found that the insulin molecule itself, immunoreactive insulin, accounted for only about 8% of the serum's insulin-like action. The authors of that study believed that potassium was the main other factor in the serum that promoted the disposition of glucose. Since potassium and glucose are both always present in the blood, their effects on each other have usually been ignored.

### Source 7 — Politics And Science: Diabetes 2000-2001

Ray Peat · Interview · Jul 26, 2013

> **John Barkhausen:** When you say sugar is protective, do you differentiate between sugars like fructose or white sugar?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Well, when you study the effect of sucrose versus glucose, a given number of calories, the sucrose... has a lower glycemic index. In other words, it is less disruptive to your pancreas. It doesn't stimulate insulin so intensely. And then when you break it down, it turns out not just that the fructose doesn't stimulate your pancreas very strongly, but when you combine glucose with fructose in the form of sucrose, the fructose actually impedes the glucose stimulation of the pancreas. So you get not just the 50% lower stimulation because the fructose isn't an active stimulant, but It's actually a retardant in stopping the glucose component from overstimulating your pancreas. And the fact that sucrose so often comes with minerals is an extra factor, but it's the fructose itself which offers protection against that glycemic, reaction which is so important in turning on fat production. So
>
> **John Barkhausen:** I think you're saying the fructose is better because it doesn't overstimulate your pancreas? Yeah, yeah.

### Source 8 — #43 - All things hormones, metabolism and health with Dr Ray Peat & Emma Sgourakis

Ray Peat · Interview · Apr 4, 2021

> **Kitty Blomfield:** And, Ray, could you comment on, because a lot of women will say or they think that white sugar, cane sugar, is poison, but, you know, they'll say that it's completely different to the sugar found in fruit or juice. So could you talk about white sugar and, you know, sugar found in fruit and juice?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Oh, well, it's mostly fruits do contain sugar. sucrose but a lot of them contain some free fructose and free glucose as well as other minor sugars but sucrose in fruits the main advantage is that it comes with lots of antioxidants anti-stress factors anti-inflammatory uh uh uh the flavonoids, for example, and potassium and magnesium. And so it's part of a very complex, valuable nutrient, even with quite a bit of like 1% amino acids that can add to your protein balance. But if you're getting good nutrition, then where a person would think nothing of eating a bowl of white rice or a potato, which contains lots of starch, the idea of getting a similar amount of calories from white sugar, has been demonized. But if your nutrition is generally good, there's nothing wrong with white sugar. In fact, it's very low in allergens. So it's safe. It can lower your cortisol when you're under stress. So it has many protective effects. In the late 19th century, there were two doctors, one in France, and one in England who cured their classical wasting diabetic patients, patients who were losing pounds every week of tissue and had maybe a two-month life expectancy. Feeding them all the sugar they wanted, they reasoned, They're going to die soon, so why torture them by depriving them of what they're craving? And it happened that giving them a regular diet of beef and potatoes and milk and whatever the standard diet was, as well as any amount of sugar that they craved, they would generally eat 12 ounces a day of white bread. refined sugar as well as their regular diet. And instead of dying in a month or six weeks, they recovered, went back to work, no longer diabetic. And when you look at the mechanisms, keeping the blood sugar up to their cravings was lowering their cortisol. stopping the destruction of their tissues, also stopping the poisoning of the pancreas with the free fatty acids. So it actually turned around the fatal disease.

### Source 9 — Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.

Ray Peat · Article · 2012 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml

> This has grown into essentially a cult, in which sugar is believed to act like an intoxicant, forcing people to eat until they become obese, and develop the "metabolic syndrome," and "diabetes," and the many problems that derive from that.
>
> The publicity campaign against "saturated fat" as an ally of cholesterol derived its support from the commercial promotion of the polyunsaturated seed oils as food for humans. Although the early investigators of vitamin E knew that the polyunsaturated oils could cause sterility, and others later found that their use in commercial animal foods could cause brain degeneration, there were a few biologists (mostly associated with George Burr) who believed that this type of fatty acid is an essential nutrient.
>
> George and Mildred Burr had created what they claimed to be a disease in rats caused by the absence of linoleic or linolenic acid in their food. Although well known researchers had previously published evidence that animals on a fat free diet were healthy—even healthier than on a normal diet—Burr and his wife published their contradictory claim without bothering to discuss the conflicting evidence. I haven't seen any instance in which Burr or his followers ever mentioned the conflicting evidence. Although other biologists didn't accept Burr's claims, and several researchers subsequently published contrary results, he later became famous when the seed oil industry wanted scientific-seeming reasons for selling their product as an "essential" food. The fact that eating the polyunsaturated fats could cause the blood cholesterol level to decrease slightly was advertised as a health benefit. Later, when human trials showed that more people on the "heart healthy" diet died of heart disease and cancer, more conventional means of advertising were used instead of human tests.
>
> Burr's experimental diet consisted of purified casein (milk protein) and purified sucrose, supplemented with a vitamin concentrate and some minerals. Several of the B vitamins weren't known at the time, and the mineral mixture lacked zinc, copper, manganese, molybdenum, and selenium. More of the essential nutrients were unknown in his time than in Yudkin's, so his failure to consider the possibility of other nutritional deficiencies affecting health is more understandable.
>
> In 1933, Burr observed that his fat-deficient rats consumed oxygen at an extremely high rate, and even then, the thought didn't occur to him that other nutritional deficiencies might have been involved in the condition he described.

### Source 10 — Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.

Ray Peat · Article · 2012 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/sugar-issues.shtml

> The rats getting the glucose had reduced phosphorus in their bones, and more calcium in their urine, than the rats that got fructose. "The results suggested that glucose rather than fructose exerted more deleterious effects on mineral balance and bone" (Tsanzi, et al., 2008).
>
> An older experiment compared two groups with an otherwise well balanced diet, lacking vitamin D, containing either 68% starch or 68% sucrose. A third group got the starch diet, but with added vitamin D. The rats on the vitamin D deficient starch diet had very low levels of calcium in their blood, and the calcium content of their bones was low, exactly what is expected with the vitamin D deficiency. However, the rats on the sucrose diet, also vitamin D deficient, had normal levels of calcium in their blood. The sucrose, unlike the starch, maintained claim homeostasis. A radioactive calcium tracer showed normal uptake by the bone, and also apparently normal bone development, although their bones were lighter than those receiving vitamin D.
>
> People have told me that when they looked for articles on fructose in PubMed they couldn't find anything except articles about its bad effects. There are two reasons for that. PubMed, like the earlier Index Medicus, represents the material in the National Library of Medicine, and is a medical, rather than a scientific, database, and there is a large amount of important research that it ignores. And because of the authoritarian and conformist nature of the medical profession, when a researcher observes something that is contrary to majority opinion, the title of the publication is unlikely to focus on that. In too many articles in medical journals, the title and conclusions positively misrepresent the data reported in the article.
>
> When the idea of "glycemic index" was being popularized by dietitians, it was already known that starch, consisting of chains of glucose molecules, had a much higher index than fructose and sucrose. The more rapid appearance of glucose in the blood stimulates more insulin, and insulin stimulates fat synthesis, when there is more glucose than can be oxidized immediately. If starch or glucose is eaten at the same time as polyunsaturated fats, which inhibit its oxidation, it will produce more fat. Many animal experiments show this, even when they are intending to show the dangers of fructose and sucrose.

### Source 11 — Glucose and sucrose for diabetes.

Ray Peat · Article · 2012 · https://raypeat.com/articles/articles/glucose-sucrose-diabetes.shtml

> Applying glucose and insulin topically to the wound, it heals quickly. The very old practice of treating deep wounds with honey or granulated sugar has been studied in controlled situations, including the treatment of diabetic ulcers, infected deep wounds following heart surgery, and wounds of lepers. The treatment eradicates bacterial infections better than some antiseptics, and accelerates healing without scarring, or with minimal scarring. The sugar regulates the communication between cells, and optimizes the synthesis of collagen and extracellular matrix.
>
> An excess of insulin, causing hypoglycemia, can cause blood vessels, for example in the brain and kidneys, to become leaky, and this has been claimed to be an effect of insulin itself. However, the same leakiness can be produced by an analog of glucose that can't be metabolized, so that intracellular glycopenia is produced. The harmful effect that has been ascribed to excessive insulin can be prevented by maintaining an adequate supply of glucose (Uezu and Murakami, 1993), showing that it is the lack of glucose, rather than the excess insulin, that causes the vascular malfunction. Fructose also reduces the leakiness of blood vessels (Plante, et al., 2003). Many of the complications of diabetes are caused by increased vascular leakiness (Simard, et al., 2002).
>
> Sugar can protect the beta-cells from the free fatty acids, apparently in the same ways that it protects the cells of blood vessels, restoring metabolic energy and preventing damage to the mitochondria. Glucose suppresses superoxide formation in beta-cells (Martens, et al., 2005) and apparently in other cells including brain cells (Isaev, et al., 2008).
>
> The beta-cell protecting effect of glucose is supported by bicarbonate and sodium. Sodium activates cells to produce carbon dioxide, allowing them to regulate calcium, preventing overstimulation and death. For a given amount of energy released, the oxidation of glucose produces more carbon dioxide and uses less oxygen than the oxidation of fatty acids.
>
> The toxic excess of intracellular calcium that damages the insulin-secreting cells in the relative absence of carbon dioxide is analogous to the increased excitation of nerves and muscles that can be produced by hyperventilation.
>
> In every type of tissue, it is the failure to oxidize glucose that produces oxidative stress and cellular damage.

### Source 12 — Ask the Herb Doctor: Sugar Myths II

Ray Peat · Interview · Oct 21, 2011

> ## Fats, Sugar, and Diabetes
>
> **Andrew Murray:** What's your opinion on the possibility of regenerating islet cells in the pancreas?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Sugar itself, sucrose, is known to stimulate the regeneration of beta cells. That was in my newsletter about a year ago, describing the early treatment of diabetes with glucose and looking at new in vitro studies where sugar stimulates regeneration and polyunsaturated fats kill the beta cells. Sugar often gets the blame for things the polyunsaturated fats do, such as the glycation of hemoglobin (HbA1c). Most of the so-called glycation is really the oxidative breakdown fragments of the polyunsaturated fats.
>
> **Andrew Murray:** So a person's HbA1c could be lowered if they avoided all polyunsaturated oils?
>
> **Ray Peat:** Yes.
>
> **Sarah Murray:** A really bad example of a way to eat sugar is a donut: white flour (glucose) fried in canola, sunflower, or corn oil (PUFA). You have pure glucose and pure polyunsaturated fatty acids blocking your cells from using that glucose. A good example is ice cream with fresh fruit. There you have a saturated fat and the fruit providing fructose.

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