I think we should be careful here about calling glucose "sugar" and talking about harmful metabolic process because most people think sucrose when talking about sugar. And the potential harm from sucrose, glucose+fructose is quite different than glucose alone. Eating 100g of pasta, what you call "basically sugar", is not at all the same as eating 100g of table sugar. There's just so much room for misinterpretation and miscommunication around food. And in addition, so much is unknown.
You are correct, I was imprecise. 100g of pasta is close to 100g of glucose, while 100g of table sugar (sucrose) is ~50/50 glucose and fructose, the latter of which has a completely separate metabolism.
But both cause a huge glucose spike (ignoring fructose metabolism for now) and in that respect they are quite similar, and very different from basically any other kind of food in terms of metabolic response.
I think we should be careful here about calling glucose "sugar" and talking about harmful metabolic process because most people think sucrose when talking about sugar. And the potential harm from sucrose, glucose+fructose is quite different than glucose alone. Eating 100g of pasta, what you call "basically sugar", is not at all the same as eating 100g of table sugar. There's just so much room for misinterpretation and miscommunication around food. And in addition, so much is unknown.