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A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies assessing the association between plant-based dietary patterns and the risk of type 2 diabetes among adults, provides the strongest evidence to date that eating a plant-based diet does indeed lower the risk of type 2 diabetes.
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A systematic review and meta-analysis of observational studies assessing the association between plant-based dietary patterns and the risk of type 2 diabetes among adults, provides the strongest evidence to date that eating a plant-based diet does indeed lower the risk of type 2 diabetes.
The benefits were even stronger when the plant-based foods included fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and nuts, wrote researchers writing online July 22 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
Led by Qi Sun, M.D., ScD, of the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, researchers based their findings on nine studies from seven publications that included 307,099 patients, 23,544 cases of type 2 diabetes. The studies varied in follow-up periods from two to 28 years. The association may even be greater than reported here, the researchers wrote, because the studies all adjusted for BMI.
“By analyzing dietary patterns, we can quantify the synergistic effects of dietary compositions on overall disease risk, including the substitution and replacement of major macronutrient types (ie, plant sources of fat and protein for the respective animal sources),” researchers wrote.
In addition to the inverse relationship between consuming a plant-based diet and lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes, researchers outlined several other ways in which plant-based foods can lower the risk of diabetes.
“The totality of current evidence supports health benefits for increasing plant-based food consumption in lowering the risk of type 2 diabetes and, potentially, other cardiometabolic diseases,” researchers wrote.
Source: JAMA Intern Med. Published online July 22, 2019. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.2195