Blood Sugar Simulator

See how food, drinks and exercise move blood sugar in a healthy person compared with someone with type 2 diabetes, and what each of them would feel.

🥤 Sugary drink

A 500 mL cola: about 13 teaspoons of sugar, already dissolved.

Healthy Type 2 diabetes

Blood glucose

5:00 h:mm

Healthy

fasting 88 mg/dL

88 mg/dL

Normal range

Insulin 6 µU/mL at 5:00

Feeling fine, steady energy

Peak: 162 at 0:44
Rise: +74
Spike lasted: 43 min
Above 180: 0 min

Type 2 diabetes

fasting 145 mg/dL

145 mg/dL

Above normal

Insulin 14 µU/mL at 5:00

Usually no symptoms: high sugar is often silent
Still stressing blood vessels over time

Peak: 328 at 1:02
Rise: +183
Spike lasted: 1 h 36 min
Above 180: 1 h 26 min
Sugar lost in urine: 12 g

Insulin response

Insulin is the key that lets glucose into the cells. The healthy pancreas releases a fast burst as soon as sugar arrives. With type 2 diabetes that burst is missing and the cells respond weakly, so even though insulin levels end up high, glucose stays high.

What's happening

Liquid sugar needs no digesting, so it floods into the blood within minutes.
The healthy pancreas answers with a fast burst of insulin. The spike is short, and often overshoots into a small "crash" that leaves you hungry again.
With type 2 diabetes the early insulin burst is missing and the cells resist insulin, so glucose climbs much higher, stays above 180 mg/dL for a long time, and spills into the urine.

Build your own

53 g carbohydrate in total

Include
Cola 500 mL bottle · 53 g carbs (53 g sugar)
at 0:15

at 0:15

Key ideas

Blood glucose: Normal fasting is 70–99 mg/dL, and below 140 two hours after eating. Type 2 diabetes is diagnosed at a fasting level of 126 or more, or 200 or more two hours after a glucose drink.
Insulin resistance: In type 2 diabetes the body still makes insulin, but muscle, liver and fat cells respond poorly, and the pancreas can't release it fast enough. Sugar builds up in the blood instead.
Glycemic index: How fast a food's carbohydrate turns into blood glucose. Liquids and refined starch are fast; whole grains, beans and whole fruit are slow. Fat, protein and fiber eaten alongside slow everything down.
Silent highs: Blood sugar between 140 and 250 often causes no symptoms at all, yet over years it damages blood vessels, nerves, eyes and kidneys. That is why diabetes can go unnoticed.