Mediterranean Diet reduces Type-2 diabetes risk
The PREDIMED study has shown that the colourful Mediterranean Diet, or Rainbow Diet, can reduce the risk of Type-2 diabetes, by up to 50 per cent and is better than the standard low fat diet offered by doctors.
Researchers actually found that the colourful Mediterranean Diet, or Rainbow Diet, was better that the standard low fat diet recommended by doctors for prevention of, or treatment of Type-2 diabetes.
The research was conducted as a part of a large scale cardiovascular project – PREDIMED – amongst people with a high cardiovascular risk, and was a three arm, randomised trial involving almost 500 people. The subjects were all in middle age or older.
One group was given the standard doctor-prescribed ‘low fat diet’, while one group used a Rainbow Diet with added olive oil, and the third used a Rainbow Diet with an added daily helping of nuts.
None of the participants had diabetes and all were between 55 and 80 years of age. The volume of olive oil was 1 litre per week. The nut amounts were 30 gms a day. Otherwise no control was placed on diet and no advice was given on exercise.
After a 4-year period, the incidence of diabetes was 10.0% for the added olive oil group, 11.1% for the added nut group and 17.9% for the control group. When the two groups on the Mediterranean diet were added together the risk of developing full diabetes was reduced by 52% over a low fat diet.
Chris Woollams, former Oxford University Biochemist and author of the original Rainbow Diet book back in 2005, added, “We have seen other studies on this subject too. One study showed the Rainbow Diet reduced Type-2 diabetes risk in younger subjects, who have been moving to poor refined and saturated fat diets. Another study showed that the Mediterranean Diet reduced risk in people who had had cardiovascular disease. Frankly, the research is consistent and clear. People wanting to reduce diabetes risk just need to be clear on what the traditional real Mediterranean Diet is all about because a number of commentators have over-simplified it to throwing different colourful fruits in a blender. The sugar hit will probably increase your Diabetes, not decrease it”.
Go to: Sugar in home made fruit juices and smoothies as bad as a fizzy soft drink.
