Eat whole fruits to lower risk of diabetes
Fruits like apples, blueberries and grapes are capable of lowering the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but only when eaten as whole fruit and not in juice form, says a new research from the Harvard School of Public Health.
The investigation was the first of its kind to look at the influence of specific fruits on the risk of the disease.
The data they analyzed came from more than 187,000 health care professionals participating in three long-running studies. None of the participants had any type of major chronic disease when they enrolled in the studies.
The Harvard team found that the risk of developing type-2 diabetes among individuals who ate at least two weekly servings of blueberries, grapes and apples was 23 percent lower than it was in study participants who ate less than one serving of fruit per month.
Those who drank one or more servings of fruit juice daily had a 21 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
There’s a big difference between fruit and fruit juice. Fruit juice is a concentrated sugar source that can promote insulin resistance and obesity, especially when consumed in quantity, so the new study’s finding is not surprising.
Interestingly, the report also showed that switching from fruit juice to whole fruit lowers the risk of type 2 diabetes by at least seven percent.
An effective strategy to lower your risk of type 2 diabetes is to avoid carbohydrate foods that are high on the glycemic (sugar) index, the measure of how rapidly the body converts them into glucose thereby provoking an insulin response.
Reducing or eliminating intake of alcoholic beverages also helps. The body burns calories from alcohol immediately, increasing the likelihood that those calories coming from the food you eat along with alcoholic drinks will be stored as fat.
Dr. Ajay Sati.
