I guess the time frame would be from the late 1500s to 18th century. Did they eat more sugar than the modern british diet? Did the prevalence of diabetes and other lifestyle related diseases go up?
I am quoting William Dufty "Sugar Blues", p37:
"At the time of it's introduction to Britain [c1300], sugar was prohibitively expensive......[At $25 per pound it] cost the same as a years salary of a working man."
"By 1662 Britain was importing 16 million pounds of sugar per year....."
"By 1700 the British Isles were accounting for 20 million pounds a year. By 1800, it was 160 million pounds per year."
So it went from trace element consumed by the wealthy c1500, then after large-scale sugar plantations in the 16th and 17th centuries to a food being able to be consumed by all classes (albeit skewed towards the wealthier, Dufty provides the figure of a pound of sugar costing about the same as three dozen eggs in 1662) by 1700, then to universal access on par with bread by 1800.