Insulin plays an essential role in the human body, especially for the 37.3 million people in the U.S. who have diabetes, according to the National Diabetes Statistics Report.
An ambitious global study of Type 2 diabetes has come to a stark conclusion: 70% of all new cases annually can be linked to dietary habits, and three in particular play the biggest role in development of the metabolic disease.
The study, published Monday in Nature Medicine, looked at 28 years of data from 184 countries, in an effort to link 11 different dietary factors to the development of type 2 diabetes (T2D).
The authors found that roughly 70% of all new T2D cases annually, or about 14 million cases worldwide, could be linked to dietary factors.
Three in particular stood out, though, as having the highest correlation with new cases:
- insufficient intake of whole grains
- excess intake of refined rice and wheat
- excess intake of processed meat
More broadly, the authors separated the dietary factors into six "excess intake" categories and five "insufficient intake" groups -- and the excess intake factors played much more of a role (about 61% of cases) than the insufficient intake ones.
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In other words - eating too much "bad stuff" was more of a problem than not eating enough "good stuff."
