Up to 275 Australians develop diabetes every day, but new research in the UK suggests cutting diabetes risk can be as easy as munching on some spinach.
A new study by the University of Leicester has found that eating green leafy vegetables can significantly cut your risk of type 2 diabetes.
Diagnosis of type 2 diabetes has dramatically increased over the past two decades with 6.4 percent of people worldwide and about 900,000 Australians now affected.
The study revealed that eating an extra one-and-a-half serves of good greens such as broccoli, kale, spinach and sprouts every day can cut your risk by up to 14 percent.
This is down to the high amount of antioxidants found in green vegetables and the high amount of magnesium found in spinach in particular.
The research team, lead by Dr Patrice Carter, found that although the relationship between high-volume fruit and vegetable diets and cancer and heart disease had been recognised, the link with diabetes was unclear.
“Our results support the evidence that ‘foods’ rather than isolated components such as antioxidants are beneficial for health,” Dr Carter wrote in a recent issue of the British Medical Journal .
“Results from several supplement trials have produced disappointing results for prevention of disease.”
However, in an editorial published in the same issue, Professor Jim Mann from New Zealand’s University of Otago, and Imperial College London’s Dagfinn Aune, argued for caution about the results.
They wrote it may be too early to suggest vegetables can reduce the risk due to the limited number of studies on the subject.
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