People with diabetes know that high-sugar fruits cannot be eaten indiscriminately. However, lychee has recently become the focus of attention for diabetic patients because some say that eating lychee can lower blood sugar and even treat diabetes. How can a high-sugar fruit like lychee lower blood sugar?
Professor Zhou Chaofan, a member of the expert committee of the China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences, definitively stated that eating lychee cannot treat diabetes. Lychee contains a large amount of fructose, which can only be utilized by the body after being converted to glucose by the liver's enzymes. Consuming large amounts of lychee causes fructose to accumulate in the bloodstream, which, if not converted to glucose in time, can lead to excessively low blood glucose, causing hypoglycemic shock. However, this does not mean that one can lower blood sugar by eating lychee. This is because consuming large amounts of fructose can lead to hyperlipidemia. More than 60% of diabetic patients also have hyperlipidemia. The unused sugar can be converted into triglycerides through the tricarboxylic acid cycle, and people with high triglyceride levels are not suitable for consuming large amounts of high-fructose foods. Professor Zhou mentioned that as early as 1964, the Chinese Journal of Internal Medicine reported two cases of hypoglycemic shock caused by eating large quantities of lychee.