Healthful Plant-Based Diet May Lower Risk for Type 2 Diabetes

MONDAY, Jan. 22, 2024 (HealthDay News) -- A healthful plant-based diet may lower the risk for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), according to a study published in the January issue of Diabetes & Metabolism.

Alysha S. Thompson, from Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland, and colleagues examined associations between healthful and unhealthful plant-based diet indices (hPDI and uPDI) and T2DM using prospective data from the U.K. Biobank involving participants aged 40 to 69 years at baseline.

During 12 years of follow-up, 2,628 of the 113,097 study participants developed T2DM. The researchers found that compared with participants with the lowest hPDI scores (quartile 1), those with the highest scores (quartile 4) had a lower risk for T2DM (hazard ratio, 0.76). The association was mediated by lower body mass index (BMI) and lower waist circumference (proportion mediated, 28 percent for both), as well as lower concentrations of hemoglobin A1c, triglycerides, alanine aminotransferase, gamma glutamyl transferase, C-reactive protein, insulin-like growth factor 1, cystatin C, and urate (11, 9, 5, 4, 4, 4, 4, and 4 percent, respectively). There was an association seen between higher uPDI scores and higher T2DM risk (hazard ratio, 1.37), which was potentially mediated by higher waist circumference, BMI, and higher concentrations of triglycerides (17, 7, and 13 percent, respectively).

"Our findings suggest that high-quality plant-based diets, characterized by high consumption of fruits, vegetables, nuts, legumes, whole grains, tea and coffee, are beneficial for T2DM prevention, in line with existing dietary recommendations to increase plant food consumption to reduce T2DM risk," the authors write.

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