medwireNews: Fresh fruit consumption is associated with a reduced risk for diabetes, and a lower incidence of mortality and complications among those with diabetes, results of a large study suggest.
“[A]voidance of sweet-tasting food (including fresh fruit) is common among diabetic patients” in China and other Asian countries, explain Huaidong Du (University of Oxford, UK) and study co-authors.
In their study of 512,891 Chinese adults, the team found that people without diabetes at baseline who consumed fresh fruit on a daily basis were less likely to develop diabetes over approximately 7 years of follow-up than those who rarely or never consumed fruit (adjusted hazard ratio [HR]=0.88).
And among participants with diabetes at baseline, daily fruit consumption was associated with a lower risk for all-cause mortality, along with microvascular and macrovascular complications (adjusted HR per each daily portion=0.83, 0.72, and 0.87, respectively).
“These findings […] provide strong evidence in support of current dietary guidelines that fresh fruit consumption should be recommended for all, including those with diabetes,” the researchers write in PLOS Medicine.
And they conclude that “better health promotion to improve public understanding of the role of fresh fruit in diabetes prevention and management” is required.
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