Ruminations

Type 2 Diabetes Risk Reduction

"We found that eating plant-based diets was associated with, on average, 23% reduction in diabetes risk."
"We further showed that individuals who consumed a healthy version of the plant-based diet by emphasizing the intake of fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes, and minimizing intake of sugar-sweetened beverages and refined carbohydrates, had a further 30% reduction in their risk of developing type 2 diabetes."
"I would describe these risk reductions as being quite significant."
"Plant-based diets can promote metabolic health and reduce diabetes risk through many pathways, including preventing excess weight gain, improving insulin sensitivity, reducing inflammation and other mechanisms."
"It does matter what veggies people eat and how the veggies are processed. Therefore, consuming healthy plant foods that are not or minimally processed, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, legumes, nuts, and whole grains, should be emphasized."
Dr. Qi Sun, associate professor, Department of Nutrition, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston

Healthy plant-based diets can help prevent type 2 diabetes, new analysis suggests.

ISTOCK/LISOVSKAYA

"Plant-based dietary patterns, especially when they are enriched with healthful plant-based foods, may be beneficial for the primary prevention of type 2 diabetes."
"Multiple interventional and observational studies have indicated that increased consumption of plant-based foods can lead to short-term weight loss or prevention of long-term weight gain."
"In turn, it is likely that a considerable proportion of the protective association between plant-based diets and risk of type 2 diabetes can be attributable to weight control."
"Moreover, refined grains, starches, and sugars can also be characterized as plant-based, although they are independently associated with a higher risk of type 2 diabetes."
Study report, published in JAMA Internal Medicine

"People truly have to understand that what they put in their mouth affects their health. You’re gonna have to commit to yourselves and acknowledge that your current diet is hurting you."
"What if we had a world without processed food in it?"
"We wouldn’t have the weight problems we have now if it weren’t for processed food. It would be very difficult to become obese while eating a whole-food, plant-based diet."
"By eating the wrong foods, we increase our insulin levels. Increased insulin levels actually block the production of leptin [a hormone that works to regulate appetite by signalling to the brain that enough has been consumed].”
Mara Schwartz, CDE, RN, coordinator, Diabetes Prevention Program, Self Regional Healthcare, Greenwood, South Carolina

Ms. Schwartz, while well-credentialled as a dietitian, knows the issues of controlling diabetes from the inside-out, since she is herself a Type 1 diabetic; completely insulin-dependent. Her body does not produce insulin and to compensate she must take multiple daily doses of insulin injections to maintain life-saving balance controlling her diabetes, enabling her body to process glucose for energy. Most Type 1 diabetics are diagnosed at a young age; diabetes-onset having a large genetic component. Diet management is critical to the health of people with Type 1 diabetes.

Unless diabetes is under control, avoiding both high- and low-blood-sugars through constant monitoring of blood sugar levels, the potential for acquiring further chronic diseases is high, from neuropathy to blindness; kidney failure to amputations, and not least, heart conditions. In contrast it is not some disturbing event that causes the body's immune system to attack its insulin-producing beta cells that causes Type 2 diabetes. This type of mostly non-insulin-dependent diabetes is viewed largely as a middle-age-overweight-sedentary problem leading to the condition.

Type 2 diabetes is generally controlled by a regimen of lifestyle changes including diet, exercise and medications in pill form meant to enable the efficient use of the insulin the body produces through body cells' uptake. In some instances, insulin must be resorted to as therapy when the drugs fail to work. All of the potential incidence of heart and kidney disease, nerve damage, blindness that can assail Type 1 diabetics, are issues that Type 2 diabetics are also susceptible to, requiring careful blood sugar monitoring as part of therapy.

While Type 1 diabetes cannot be avoided until more is known about its onset-provoking mechanisms, Type 2 diabetes is avoidable with a change of lifestyle. And that, critically, includes diet and weight loss. Researchers have produced a new study that categorically validates plant-based diets as a deterrent to weight gain and Type 2 diabetes onset. It was found that those people who adhered to a vegan, a vegetarian or other kind of plant-based diet were 23 percent less susceptible to developing Type 2 diabetes.

Those people who consume a wide variety of meals based on plants are able to reduce risk of diabetes without being strict vegetarians avoiding meat, poultry and fish. On the other hand, white rice, white bread, pastas and other types of highly processed grains vastly reduce the inherent benefits of including grains alongside fresh fruits and vegetables. Those who took part in the study following this kind of nutritional dietary advice were 30 percent less likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than others who ignored the advice.

Undertaking the study, the researchers studied data from nine published studies which totalled 307,099 participants, among them 23,544 people who developed Type 2 diabetes. The studies' timelines ranged from two to 28 years and all of the studies made use of food frequency questionnaires in assessing participants' diets. The conclusion was that those who most carefully followed a vegan, vegetarian or plant-based diet were more successful in protecting themselves from diabetes onset as opposed to those consuming a lesser amount of plant-based meals.