Your article (If Coca-Cola’s ‘health by stealth’ wheeze works, so be it, 20 May) shows little regard for many of the 400,000 people in the UK who live with type 1 diabetes and require sugary drinks in emergency situations where their blood glucose levels fall to dangerously low levels. When the blood glucose levels in someone with type 1 diabetes fall to such low levels, they need sugar urgently. Without it they could die. There are solid food options that contain fast-acting sugar, but when a person’s blood glucose levels fall so low they sometimes struggle to chew. Therefore sugary drinks are often their best, and most accessible option.
The suggestion that companies should secretly subtract sugar from many food and drink recipes is inappropriate and incorrect. If sugar levels were secretly reduced in such drinks, people with type 1 diabetes could suffer dire consequences. People with type 1 diabetes had no way of preventing their condition. The sharp rise in type 1 diabetes incidence, particularly in children under five, is not connected to rises in obesity. Only medical research will reveal the exact cause and the cure.
Karen Addington
Chief executive, JDRF UK
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