Does Sucrose Increase the Sugar Level?

The sucrose found in table sugar as well as in fruits can increase your blood sugar.


Your blood sugar levels vary throughout the day in response to the foods you eat, your physical activity level, your stress and even your hormones. Many of these factors can interact to increase your blood sugar levels; regularly monitoring your blood sugars with a glucometer can help you better understand how your body works. Although foods can affect different people differently, grains, flours and sugars increase blood sugar levels in almost everyone. Sucrose is a type of sugar that can elevate your blood sugar levels in the minutes and hours following its consumption.

Sucrose in Foods

The main source of sucrose in your diet is table sugar, as well as most sweetened foods and beverages. For example, white sugar, brown sugar and maple syrup are mainly made of sucrose, which means that any foods sweetened with these sugars will also be high in sucrose, such as cakes, cookies, fruit punches, muffins, pancakes and granola bars. Although much of the sugar naturally found in fruits is in the form of free fructose, some fruits, including melons, peaches, pineapples, oranges and dates, also provide significant amounts of sucrose, albeit less than sugary foods. Avoid sucrose and sucrose-containing foods, with the exception of fruits, to prevent your blood sugar levels from increasing dramatically after your meals.


Sucrose is a type of sugar called a disaccharide. Disaccharide means that it is a carbohydrate made from two molecules of sugar. In the case of sucrose, the two molecules are glucose and fructose. Another common disaccharide in your diet is lactose, which is made of a molecule of glucose attached to a molecule of galactose. When you eat sucrose, it is easily broken down by digestive enzymes in your digestive system into single molecules of glucose and fructose to facilitate its absorption. Both the glucose and the fructose forming sucrose easily pass from your intestines into your blood.

Blood Sugars

Once the glucose and fructose derived from the digestion of sucrose enter your bloodstream, your blood sugar levels start to increase. Depending on the content of your meal, it can take only a few minutes or up to an hour before you can notice a change in your blood sugar values. A study comparing the effects of different types of sugars on blood sugar levels showed that sucrose had the most impact compared to honey and free fructose, as published in 1990 in the "Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics."


If your pancreas, the organ responsible of producing insulin to control your blood sugar levels, is healthy, your blood sugar levels are not likely to increase too much after eating sucrose. A healthy pancreas can compensate for a high sucrose intake. However, if you have prediabetes, polycystic ovarian syndrome or type 2 diabetes, your body has lost the ability to respond normally to insulin. In other words, your blood sugar levels are more likely to increase quickly, go higher and stay high for a longer period of time if you have one of these conditions associated with insulin resistance. Controlling your sucrose intake can help you maintain more stable blood sugar levels.

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