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Acidic diet raised risk for type 2 diabetes in women
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Results from a study of more than 60,000 women demonstrated a link between dietary acid load and the risk for type 2 diabetes.
“It has recently been suggested that acid/base imbalance may play an important role in some cardiometabolic abnormalities,” researchers wrote. “Markers of diet-induced acidosis have been associated with insulin resistance, but only in cross-sectional studies, preventing any conclusions in terms of causality.”
Researchers followed 66,485 women from the E3N-EPIC, the French Center of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition, for more than 14 years. They used a validated 208-item questionnaire on diet history to evaluate participants’ usual diet and estimated potential renal acid load (PRAL) and endogenous acid production (NEAP) scores based on nutrient intake.
During follow-up, 1,372 women developed type 2 diabetes. Data indicated that risk for developing type 2 diabetes was significantly higher among those in the top quartile vs. the bottom quartile for PRAL (HR=1.56; 95% CI, 1.29-1.9). Results also showed that women with BMIs less than 25 had the highest risk (HR=1.96; 95% CI, 1.43-2.69), as compared with overweight women (HR=1.28; 95% CI, 1-1.64), with the researchers observing statistically significant trends in risk across quartiles in both groups (P<.0001 for trend and P=.03 for trend, respectively).
Higher NEAP scores also were associated with an increased risk for diabetes.
“A diet rich in animal protein may favor net acid intake, while most fruits and vegetables constitute base precursors. In our study, the fact that the association between both PRAL and NEAP scores and the risk of incident type 2 diabetes persisted after adjustment for dietary patterns, meat consumption and intake of fruit, vegetables, coffee and sweetened beverages suggests that dietary acids may play a specific role in promoting the development of type 2 diabetes, irrespective of the foods or drinks that provide the acidic or alkaline components,” the researchers wrote.
However, they said future studies are needed to confirm their findings.
Disclosure: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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