My kin loves chocolates!  I used to often send them these sugary- laden candies as a treat because I knew well they are sweet toothed and I want to make them happy!  However, this well meaning gesture of mine seemed to have added to the chocolate addiction of my relatives and I was bothered for quite sometime because my brother sent me an e-mail asking me to buy him a blood glucose monitoring apparatus  because lately he was suspected to have diabetes.

As I have done my research,  these are the different myths about the cause of diabetes:

• Eating sweets or the wrong kind of food does not cause diabetes. However, it may cause obesity and this is associated with people developing Type 2 diabetes.

Stress does not cause diabetes, although it may be a trigger for the body turning on itself as in the case of Type 1 diabetes. It does, however, make the symptoms worse for those who already have diabetes.

Diabetes is not contagious. Someone with diabetes cannot pass it on to anyone else.

I wonder if there is any truth about the presumption that if you urinate on the ground and ants are attracted to the spot because of the sugar in your urine, then you have diabetes.   They say that diabetes is hereditary but I have not come across any of my relatives to have this kind of problem.  So, maybe my brother is only over acting and thought he had acquired the disease because of some symptoms he might have thought to be diabetes.

To be sure, I bought a glucose monitoring apparatus and box of  glucose strips so he will be able to check if there is really a need to worry.  Since they still believe that sweets are the culprit for diabetes, I will just go easy in  sending them chocolates so I will not be getting the weight of the blame just in case.

I will just keep these yummy chocolates at bay till they have the cravings again and the diabetes scare is gone!.