Healthy food lowers diabetes risk

People who get a range of fruits and vegetables in their diets may have a somewhat decreased risk of type 2 diabetes, a new study suggests.


The findings, reported in the journal Diabetes Care, do not prove that eating your fruits and veggies will ward off type 2 diabetes - a disease closely associated with obesity and old age.


According to Reuters, researchers say the findings should give people yet more incentive to eat the way our mothers always told us.
The study of over 3,700 UK adults found that those who downed the most servings of fruit and vegetables in a week had a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes over 11 years, versus people who ate the fewest.


Diabetes risk was also lower among people who ate a wider variety of fruit and vegetables -- regardless of the actual quantity they ate.


That suggests people should not only focus on how many servings they get each day, according to senior researcher Nita G. Forouhi, of the Institute of Metabolic Science in Cambridge, UK.


"The finding on variety of intake is new and exciting," she said in an email, "because it demonstrates that independent of the quantity consumed, we have the potential to gain additional and important benefits from choosing a mixture of different fruits and vegetables as part of a balanced diet."