Diabetes: Sugar referred to as simple or fast-acting carbohydrate

Sugar is another type of carbohydrate. You may also hear sugar referred to as simple or fast-acting carbohydrate. There are two main types of sugar:
* naturally occurring sugars such as those in milk or fruit
* added sugars such as those added during processing such as fruit canned in heavy syrup or sugar added to make a cookie

On the nutrition facts label, the number of sugar grams includes both added and natural sugars. There are many different names for sugar. Examples of common names are table sugar, brown sugar, molasses, honey, beet sugar, cane sugar, confectioner' s sugar, powdered sugar, raw sugar, turbinado, maple syrup, high-fructose corn syrup, and sugar cane syrup.

You may also see table sugar listed by its chemical name, sucrose. Fruit sugar is also known as fructose and the sugar in milk is called lactose. You can recognize other sugars on labels because their chemical names also end in "-ose." For example glucose (also called dextrose), fructose (also called levulose), lactose, and maltose.