Q&A: Can you get diabetes from eating too much sugar?

While continually overdosing on sweets can help trigger diabetes in someone with prediabetes or another predisposition, it is not a direct cause of it (although the sweet stuff can make you pack on pounds, a major risk factor). People with type 2 diabetes gradually develop resistance to insulin, the hormone responsible for helping to convert blood sugar into energy, and diabetes develops when the pancreas can no longer keep up with the increased demand. In the less common type 1 form, the body's immune system attacks insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

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