A black market trade brewing in our other favourite national drink

An underground trade in Irn-Bru has sprung up. Sugar lovers are hoarding cans of the sweet orange fizzy drink which were made before April. Why? Because that was before the sugar tax was introduced, and Barr’s reduced the amount of sugar in cans of Irn-Bru to avoid consumers having to pay more. Apparently the more sugary stuff tastes better, although if you ask me you can’t tell the difference. As a country we really love sugar, and it’s no surprise when you consider how our brains seem almost hard-wired to crave it. Unfortunately we as a population eat too much of it. In order to use the sugar we consume, our bodies produce insulin, which helps use it for energy and store it for future use. In some people though the insulin becomes less effective. This is made more likely by being overweight and inactive. The sugar level in the blood slowly increases, causing what we call Type 2 diabetes. This is by far the most common type of diabetes and is becoming more common due to the number of people who are overweight. Being overweight is increasingly common – and no wonder, given the amount of sugar packed into our food and drink. Unlike Type 1 diabetes, the symptoms usually come on quite slowly. Being thirsty, tired, passing a lot of water and frequent infections are typical warning signs. For diagnosis we used to rely on blood glucose levels measured before and after a test dose of sugar. Now we tend to use something called an HbA1c test. This can show what average blood sugar levels have been doing over a period of weeks and months, rather than just a snapshot. The real problem with Type 2 diabetes is the long-term complications. Potentially serious problems with kidneys, eyes, arteries, feet and nerves can develop. It’s a real drain on the NHS’s increasingly stretched budget. Worryingly, more and more young people are being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes, and this is part of the reason for the sugary drinks tax. It’s a probably a good thing, and might help if we all treated sugary drinks as an occasional treat – and not as a substitute for water.