5.    Diabetes elevates your risk of developing other health conditions.

Diabetes can come with serious health complications. For starters, research shows that those with diabetes are nearly two times more likely to die of cardiovascular disease than those who don’t have the illness. In addition, hospitalization associated with heart attack is 1.8 times higher among diabetics. And hospitalization rates associated with stroke are one and a half times higher than those who do not suffer from this disease. Further, diabetes can lead to blindness, kidney failure, and even depression.

6.    Sugary beverages and diabetes go hand in hand.

Love that large Coke at lunch? How about that extra-large sweetened coffee? You may want to think twice about behaviors like these.

Drinking just one or two sugary drinks per day may increase your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes by 26 percent.  Research shows that sugary beverages are the leading source of added sugar in the American diet. In fact, experts say that drinks loaded with sugar contain 36 percent of all added sugars in the American diet.

The link between sugary liquids and diabetes may be because sugary liquids (like soda) don’t have fiber. As a result, they’re processed differently by the body than sugary foods. This increases the rate at which sugar is released into the blood stream, which floods the organs with too much sugar. This could potentially increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes.