For people with type 2 diabetes, choosing the right foods might make a big difference.
A recent study says that certain foods can help these patients live longer.
What The Study Found
A study from the German Diabetes Center in Germany was shared in Stockholm, Sweden. They wanted to give better food advice to people with type 2 diabetes.
In the past, many food guidelines for these patients were guesses. They weren’t based on strong facts.
Dr. Janett Barbaresko, a researcher, said that foods like whole grains, fiber, fish, and certain fats (called PUFAs) can help these patients live longer. Also, eating more vegetables and plant proteins is good.
The team looked at 107 studies on food and type 2 diabetes. They picked 72 of them for a deeper look.
They found that:
Eating more whole grain (20 g/day) can reduce the risk of death by 16%.
Eating more fish every week can reduce the risk by 5% for each serving.
Eating more fiber (5 g/day) can reduce the risk by 14%.
Eating more PUFAs (0.1 g/day) can reduce the risk by 13%.
Eating 100 g more vegetables every day can reduce the risk by 12%.
Eating 10 g more plant proteins every day can reduce the risk by 9%.
But not all foods were good. Eating more eggs and cholesterol might make things worse. Eating 10 g more eggs every day could raise the death risk by 5%. And, 300 mg more cholesterol every day could raise it by 19%.
More Research Needed
Dr. Sabrina Schlesinger, who led the research, said that while these findings are important, more research is needed.
But she thinks that adding some of these foods to daily meals is a good step for type 2 diabetes patients.
However, this study doesn’t prove that these foods will make type 2 diabetes patients live longer.
It just shows a link. Also, some parts of the study might not be very strong because they didn’t have many studies to look at.
