Diabetes Risk Can Be Reduced by Whole Fruits and Increased by Juice

A health alert has just been issued as a result to a massive study that has been conducted which has shown that while a person’s risk of diabetes can be reduced by consuming appropriate amounts of whole fruits, the opposite is true among individuals who drink fruit juices.

The study that has lead to this knowledge was conducted by Harvard School of Public Health researchers. What it determined was that eating certain types of fruits, whole, is associated with reducing the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. The result was based on what was actually three separate layers of research that were combined into one conclusion.

This study was a combination of the data from three other separate studies which allowed for the examination of data relating to 187,382 men and women. They were able to eliminate the subjects who had heart disease, cancer, and diabetes at the beginning of the research. The data that they used was gleaned from the Nurses’ Health Study, the Nurses’ Health Study II, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.

When the researchers performed an analysis of the consumption of the various fruits and fruit juices, they came up with the surprisingly different results. The fruits and their juices which were studied within this research included peaches, plums, or apricots; grapes or raisins; cantaloupe; bananas; apples or pears; oranges; grapefruit; strawberries; and blueberries.

What they determined was that people who consumed two servings each of whole apples, grapes, or blueberries were able to reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by a level as high as 23 percent, when compared to the individuals who ate fewer than 1 serving of those fruits every month.

On the other hand, the individuals who drank 1 or more servings of fruit juice each day increased their risk of developing type 2 diabetes by nearly as much; a risk as high as 21 percent more, according to the findings of the researchers.

The results of this research were published in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) and are likely to lead to additional follow-up studies in order to help to better understand the impact of fruit and fruit juice on the risk of the development of type 2 diabetes. Though the researchers did not caution the public regarding the consumption of fruit juice, it would likely be recommended that anyone who is already at an increased risk of type 2 diabetes should speak with their doctor regarding fruit and fruit juice consumption.

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