Diet and Diabetes
Reported August 05, 2008
(Ivanhoe Newswire) — What you eat could determine whether or not you develop type 2 diabetes. Three new studies looked specifically at fruit juices, fruits and vegetables and the amount of fat in a persons diet.
In the first study, researchers from Boston University assessed the consumption of sugar-sweetened soft drinks and fruit drinks in nearly 44,000 African-American women over a ten-year period. Women who drank two or more soft drinks a day had a 24 percent increased risk of diabetes. Women who consumed two or more fruit drinks had a 31 percent greater risk. The soft drink-diabetes link lessened after taking body mass index into account, but the link to fruit drinks remained strong.
The second study, which was conducted among nearly 22,000 people in England, examined vitamin C blood levels to see how fruits and vegetables impacted the diabetes risk. Investigators from Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge found people with the highest vitamin C blood levels were 62 percent less likely to develop the condition compared to those with the lowest vitamin C blood levels.
The third study came from investigators at the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center. It assessed the role of fat in the development of diabetes. Researchers randomly assigned nearly 49,000 women to either their usual diet or a diet consisting of 20 percent of calories from fat. About seven percent of both groups ended up with type 2 diabetes by the end of the eight-year study, suggesting lowering fat content may not lower the risk for the condition.
SOURCE: Archives of Internal Medicine, published online July 28, 2008