Eating more plant-based foods may lower diabetes risk
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Key takeaways:
- Middle-aged adults who adhered most to a healthy-plant based diet had a reduced risk for developing diabetes.
- Unhealthy plant-based foods were not tied to lower diabetes risk.
Middle-aged adults who eat more plant-based foods and fewer animal-based products are less likely to develop incident diabetes, according to study findings published in Diabetes Care.
In an analysis of data from adults who participated in the Atherosclerosis Risk in Communities (ARIC) study, researchers found those who adhered closest to an eating pattern that included fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and legumes had reduced risk for diabetes compared with adults who adhered the least to a plant-based diet.
“Our findings support recommendations to prioritize plant foods like fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, coffee and tea while moderating intakes of animal-source foods, especially red meat,” Valerie Sullivan, PhD, MHS, RDN, assistant scientist in the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology and Clinical Research and in the department of epidemiology at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Healio.
Sullivan and colleagues collected data from 11,965 adults who enrolled in the ARIC study at four sites from 1987 to 1989. Dietary intake was collected at the first study visit as well as the third visit from 1993 to 1995. Three indices were used to determine plant-based diet adherence: overall plant-based diet index, healthy plant-based diet index and unhealthy plant-based diet index. Healthy plant-based foods included fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts, legumes, tea and coffee. Unhealthy plant-based foods included fruit juices, refined grains, potatoes, sweets and sugar-sweetened, low-calorie or diet beverages. Animal-based foods were defined as animal fat, dairy, eggs, fish and seafood, meat and other miscellaneous animal-based mixed dishes. For each index, the study group was divided into quintiles based on their adherence using the cumulative average dietary intake from visits one and three. Incident diabetes was defined as a self-reported diabetes diagnosis, use of any diabetes medication, an 8-hour fasting serum glucose of 126 mg/dL or higher or a nonfasting serum glucose of 200 mg/dL or higher.
During a median follow-up of 22 years, 35% of the study group developed diabetes. After adjusting for sociodemographics and energy intake, adults in the highest quintile for plant-based diet adherence had a lower risk for developing diabetes than those in the lowest quintile (adjusted HR = 0.89; 95% CI, 0.8-0.98; P = .01). Each 10-point increase in plant-based diet index score lowered the risk for developing diabetes by 6%.
Adults in the highest quintile for healthy plant-based diet adherence also had a lower risk for diabetes than adults in the lowest quintile (aHR = 0.85; 95% CI, 0.77-0.94; P < .001). Each 10-point increase in healthy plant-based diet index score lowered the risk for developing diabetes by 10%. Unhealthy plant-based diet index score was not associated with diabetes risk.
In sensitivity analysis, Sullivan said adults in the highest quintile for adherence to an overall or healthy plant-based diet continued to have a lower risk for developing diabetes than those in the lowest quintile even after removing all animal foods except for red meat from the index score.
“This suggests that the protective association between a plant-based diet and diabetes risk was mostly driven by higher plant food and lower red meat intake,” Sullivan said. “There was only a modest impact of minimizing other animal foods (such as dairy, eggs, poultry, fish and seafood) on the inverse associations between plant-based diets and diabetes.”
Sullivan said one limitation of the study is that dietary intake was assessed in the late 1980s and mid-1990s and eating patterns then may differ from plant-based diets today.
“Future research is needed to examine the composition of modern plant-based diets and their impact on diabetes risk,” Sullivan said.
For more information:
Valerie Sullivan, PhD, MHS, RDN, can be reached at vulliv5@jhmi.edu.
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