Jun 11, 2021 – A new study supports the recommendation to eat two servings of fruit a day for health benefits – or, in this case, a lower risk of diabetes.
A population-based Australian study found that adults who ate two servings of fruit a day had a 36% lower risk of developing diabetes within 5 years than those who ate less than half a serving of fruit a day.
Findings by Nicola P. Bondonno, PhD, and colleagues were published online June 2 in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.
The study also showed that higher fruit consumption was associated with higher insulin sensitivity, which can help lower your blood sugar.
And eating more apples – but not citrus fruits or bananas, the other two fruits studied – was also associated with better results.
“This suggests that people who have consumed more fruit [especially apples] had to produce less insulin to lower their blood sugar levels, “said Bondonno of the Institute for Nutrition Research at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia, in a statement from the Endocrine Society.
“This is important because high levels of circulating insulin (hyperinsulinemia) can damage blood vessels,” which “is related not only to diabetes but also to high blood pressure, obesity and heart disease,” she said.
Fruit juice does not have the same effect
The study supports the recommendation of the Australian food guidelines – two servings of fruit per day, with one serving being 150 grams or roughly a medium-sized apple tree, orange or banana, Bondonno said in an email.
However, fruit juice wasn’t linked to better blood sugar or insulin levels or a lower risk of diabetes, possibly because of its relatively high sugar load and less useful fiber, the researchers said.
“Promoting healthy diets and lifestyles that include consuming popular fruits such as apples, bananas and oranges with widespread geographic availability can help [type 2 diabetes] Incidence, “they concluded.
Lower 5-year chance of diabetes
It’s not clear how eating fruit can help protect against developing diabetes, the researchers said.
They wanted to investigate how fruit and fruit juice were related to blood sugar, insulin and diabetes at the age of 5 and 12 in study participants.
They identified 7,675 adults aged 25 and over without diabetes who had had blood tests and completed a food intake questionnaire between 1999-2000.
Participants rated the number of times they ate 10 different types of fruit, all types of fruit juice and other foods on a scale from 0 (never) to 10 (three times / day). The researchers then divided the participants into groups based on their answers.
The most common fruit consumed was apples (23% of total fruit consumption), followed by bananas (20%) and citrus fruits (18%). The other fruits each made up less than 8% of the total fruit consumed, so they were not examined separately.
Compared to participants who ate less fruit, those who reported eating moderate and high amounts of fruit were more likely to be female and reported having exercised at least 150 minutes per week. There were also fewer smokers in this group. While those who reported moderate to high fruit consumption also ate more vegetables and less red meat and processed meat, they consumed more sugar, according to the study.
Of 4,674 participants with 5-year follow-up, 179 participants developed diabetes.
After adjusting for age, gender, physical activity, education, socio-economic status, and other factors, the researchers found that those who ate less fruit were more likely to develop diabetes within 5 years compared to those who did ate moderate amount, was 36% lower.
Of the 3,518 participants with a 12-year follow-up, 247 had diabetes, but there were no significant associations between fruit consumption and this longer-term diabetes risk, possibly due to the small number of participants and events.
Medical news from Medscape
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