Daily diet of fresh fruit linked to lower diabetes risk

Conclusion The study findings – that eating fresh fruit every day does not raise the risk of diabetes, and may reduce it – are reassuring and in line with dietary advice in the UK. It's also helpful to see evidence that people who already have diabetes are likely to benefit from fresh fruit as well, because there has not been much research into fruit-eating for people with diabetes. However, it's a step too far to say that fresh fruit prevents diabetes or diabetes complications. Fresh fruit is just one part of a healthy diet, and diet is just one of the things that may affect someone's risk of getting diabetes. This type of study can't tell us whether fresh fruit actually protects against diabetes, because it can't account for all the other health and lifestyle factors involved. Though it would be expected that the results of this large scale study should be applicable to other populations, there may be differences between people from China and other populations. This could include differences in prevalence of diabetes and its risk factors, differences in healthcare (for example, diagnostic criteria and methods for coding health outcomes in databases), and other environmental and lifestyle differences, including fruit consumption. The study didn't ask people which types of fruit they ate, but the researchers say the most commonly eaten fruits in China are apples, pears and oranges, which release sugars more slowly into the blood stream than bananas, grapes and tropical fr...
Source: NHS News Feed - Category: Consumer Health News Tags: Diabetes Food/diet Source Type: news