Years ago when I noticed my blood sugar starting to rise, I cut out all sugars and starchy foods like potatoes, rice, bread, cakes, cookies, candies, etc. I started using stevia in my morning coffee. It soon started bugging me though because it gave me a funny feeling in my mouth and made me drool. I reverted to a single spoonful of pure cane sugar in my coffee. Within a few months I'd lost 30lb and when I asked my doctor how my blood sugar was, she replied, "remarkably better, in fact better than mine".
I later did some research and found an article from the University of California medical school explaining the glycemic chemistry of fructose and how it affects our blood sugar levels, and hence diabetes. It seems fructose is really a poison but nature provides an antidote in the form of fiber. Unfortunately most commercially available fruit juices have had all the fiber filtered out of them. Almost all soft drinks except pure soda water contain a particularly unhealthy ingredient called high-fructose corn syrup or glucose-fructose without any fiber. Fructose is sweeter than sucrose so sleazy businesses can save a buck by using a smaller (and thus cheaper) amount of fructose in their products than they would with real cane or beet sugar. At least in Mexico they still use real cane sugar in their Coca-Cola.
I'm not at my principle residence where I have access to the article I'm citing but if I get a chance I'll post a link.
TLDR- Stevia's OK but real cane sucrose is better.
