A new paper suggests that going for a plant-based diet could help lower your risk of type 2 diabetes.
The connection between type 2 diabetes and plant-based eating habits is more beneficial when plant-based foods like whole grains, vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes are included in your daily meal, instead of refined grains, sugars and starches. This is according to the study that was published in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.
Dr. Qi Sun, senior author of the paper and an associate professor in the Department of Nutrition at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston said that they found that eating plant-based diets was linked with the reduction in diabetes risk, and it is as high as 23%.
Effects of a plant-based diet on health
He said that those who eat healthy, plant-based diets like intake of fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, nuts and legumes, whole grains and minimizing their intake of sugar-sweetened beverage and refined carbohydrates had a 30% reduction in their risk of having type 2 diabetes. He described the risk reductions as significant.
Doctors and health experts already know that following a healthy diet, like maintaining healthy body weight, not smoking and exercising regularly, are some of the ways to prevent or delay the start of type 2 diabetes. Services like TestStrips4Money have appeared with the opportunity to buy and sell diabetes strips.
Tom Sanders, the professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at King's College London said in a written statement that a vegetarian or other plant-based diets that are high in free sugars and refined carbohydrates is likely to increase your risk of type 2 diabetes especially when it is linked with low levels of physical activity. This statement was distributed by the Science Media Centre in the U.K.
More than 30 million people in America have diabetes, and up to 95% of them have type 2 diabetes, that is equivalent to about 1 out of 10 people in America who have diabetes according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The rise in diabetes
On a global scale, diabetes is on the rise. There are 108 million people who had diabetes in 1980, and in 2014 it was reported that about 422 million people all over the world have diabetes, according to the World Health Organization.
The new paper involved reviewing the previously published studies on plant-based eating habits and type 2 diabetes among adults. The studies included a total of 23,544 cases of type 2 diabetes. After reviewing the data, experts found that the higher intake to a plant-based diet was linked with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and that it was consistent across all age groups and despite the body mass of the person.
BMI or body mass index is a person's weight in kilograms that is divided by the square of their height in meters, and the measurement is used to check if the person is overweight or obese. The BMI of 25 to 29.9 is considered overweight, and the BMI of 30 or greater is considered obese. One of the risk factors for type 2 diabetes is obesity.
Aside from plant-based diets, experts also encourage the public to exercise at least 30 minutes a day, to drink 8 to 10 glasses of water and to sleep up to 8 hours a day to reduce the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and other illnesses linked to obesity.
