That Health Rules

If you have a family history of diabetes, if you are overweight and sedentary  and wants to reduce your risk to develop diabetes, then this article is for you!

This new study was recently published in the Archives of Internal Medicine and as far as I know is the first one that conclusively looked at how fruits and vegtables can alter the risk of a patient to develop this chronic disease called diabetes.

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Methods  We administered a semiquantitative food frequency questionnaire to men and women from a population-based prospective cohort (European Prospective Investigation of Cancer–Norfolk) study who were aged 40 to 75 years at baseline (1993-1997) when plasma vitamin C level was determined and habitual intake of fruit and vegetables was assessed. During 12 years of follow-up between February 1993 and the end of December 2005, 735 clinically incident cases of diabetes were identified among 21 831 healthy individuals. We report the odds ratios of diabetes associated with sex-specific quintiles of fruit and vegetable intake and of plasma vitamin C levels.

Results 

• A strong inverse association was found between plasma vitamin C level and diabetes risk.
• The odds ratio of diabetes in the top quintile of plasma vitamin C was 0.38 (95% confidence interval, 0.28-0.52) in a model adjusted for demographic, lifestyle, and anthropometric variables.
• In a similarly adjusted model, the odds ratio of diabetes in the top quintile of fruit and vegetable consumption was 0.78 (95% confidence interval, 0.60-1.00).

Conclusions  Higher plasma vitamin C level and, to a lesser degree, fruit and vegetable intake were associated with a substantially decreased risk of diabetes. Our findings highlight a potentially important public health message on the benefits of a diet rich in fruit and vegetables for the prevention of diabetes.

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A word of caution from this study is that the plasma Vitamin C level correlated with the intake of fruits and vegetables and NOT Vitamin C Supplements.  Therefore do not grab all the Vitamin C supplements in the shelves to boost up your levels.  It is believed that beyond Vitamin C, there are properties in fruits and vegetables that help patients reduce their risk to develop diabetes.

As fas a I know, this is the first conclusive evidence that looked objectively at the effect of fruit and vegetable intake and the risk of diabetes.  And a reduction of diabetes risk by 62% is a great bonus to those who love fruits and vegetables on top of the other benefits associated with their intake.

So Eat Vegetables everyday and every meal… take fruits after each meal and you can even enjoy an apple or pear for snacks. Chances are… the more you eat the better the risk reduction.  Again…go for the low glycemic index fruits like apple and pear instead of a mango, banana or pineapple!

Love Yourself By Eating Right!

I am a coffee drinker.  I usually have a cup of coffee everyday and nothing more.  Except on occasions where I take another cup in the afternoon but usually I average only 5-7 cups per week.  I’ve written about the many benefits of coffee in this website and in the newpapers…and seems like more benefits are being known the more we know about coffee.

Now comes a recently published article on coffee and mortality published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, June of 2008: the official journal of the American College of Physicians.

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Setting: Health Professionals Follow-up Study and Nurses’ Health Study: 41 736 men and 86 214 women with no history of CVD or cancer at baseline.

Results: After adjustment for age, smoking, and other CVD and cancer risk factors, the relative risks for all-cause mortality in men across categories of coffee consumption (<1 cup per month, 1 cup per month to 4 cups per week, 5 to 7 cups per week, 2 to 3 cups per day, 4 to 5 cups per day, and 6 cups per day) were 1.0, 1.07 (95% CI, 0.99 to 1.16), 1.02 (CI, 0.95 to 1.11), 0.97 (CI, 0.89 to 1.05), 0.93 (CI, 0.81 to 1.07), and 0.80 (CI, 0.62 to 1.04), respectively (P for trend = 0.008). For women, the relative risks were 1.0, 0.98 (CI, 0.91 to 1.05), 0.93 (CI, 0.87 to 0.98), 0.82 (CI, 0.77 to 0.87), 0.74 (CI, 0.68 to 0.81), and 0.83 (CI, 0.73 to 0.95), respectively (P for trend < 0.001). This inverse association was mainly due to a moderately reduced risk for CVD mortality and was independent of caffeine intake.

By contrast, coffee consumption was not statistically significantly associated with risk for cancer death after adjustment for potential confounders.

Decaffeinated coffee consumption was associated with a small reduction in all-cause and CVD mortality.

Conclusion: Regular coffee consumption was not associated with an increased mortality rate in either men or women. The possibility of a modest benefit of coffee consumption on all-cause and CVD mortality needs to be further investigated.

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To further summarize the data in layman’s terms:

• This study shows that increasing consumption of coffee was associated with decreasing mortality or death.  
• People who drank at least 5 -7 cups of coffee per week had a significantly LOWER overall risk of dying from any cause. 
• People who drank 4-5 cups per day or more had the strongest protection.

What was interesting also in the study was that among women who were coffee drinkers, most reduction in death was due to a reduction in cardiovascular disease. What I like most in coffee are the studies showing its frequent consumption to result in a reduction albeit small, in the risk of diabetes.

Is Regular better than Decaf?  Well, In the study, whether people drank regular or decaffeinated coffee, benefits were noted, suggesting that the one product present in coffee that results in health benefits maybe its high levels of polyphenols  known to reduce inflammation and also known to provide other positive effects on the heart, blood vessels, and blood sugar.

What more can you ask?

I will continue to enjoy my coffee everyday whatever benefits they give me is already a PLUS!!!!

What is Mediterranean Diet?

The common Mediterranean dietary pattern has these characteristics according to the American Heart Association :

• high consumption of fruits, vegetables, bread and other cereals, potatoes, beans, nuts and seeds
• olive oil is an important monounsaturated fat source
• dairy products, fish and poultry are consumed in low to moderate amounts, and little red meat is eaten
• eggs are consumed zero to four times a week
• wine is consumed in low to moderate amounts

The diet simply put focuses more on our consumption of olive oil, vegetables, fruits, nuts ( my post on Going nuts on Nuts) , cereals, legumes and fish ( my post on the Benefits of Eating fish)  and avoiding the well liked and “unhealthy meat and “saturated fat loaded” dairy products.

The many touted benefits of this diet has long been known in the medical field.  In fact major organizations have patterned their recommended healthy diets on the contents of the mediterranean diet.  Why?  Because… Many epidimeological studies have shown that the incidence of heart disease in Mediterranean countries is lower than in the United States where meat and saturated fat is a plenty!!!!.  In fact in those studies, where people practice the Mediterranean diet, mortality rates or the risk of death were also significantly lower!!!!

In a recent article published in the May 30 online of BMJ, Mediterranean diet has been shown to lower the risk of developing diabetes.  Another PLUS to this otherwise healthy alternative way of eating….

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Participants who adhered closely to a Mediterranean diet had a lower risk of diabetes. The incidence rate ratios adjusted for sex and age were 0.41 (95% confidence interval 0.19 to 0.87) for those with moderate adherence (score 3-6) and 0.17 (0.04 to 0.75) for those with the highest adherence (score 7-9) compared with those with low adherence (score <3). In the fully adjusted analyses the results were similar.

A two point increase in the score was associated with a 35% relative reduction in the risk of diabetes (incidence rate ratio 0.65, 0.44 to 0.95), with a significant inverse linear trend (P=0.04) in the multivariate analysis.

Conclusion Adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with a reduced risk of diabetes.

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In this study, during an average of 4 years of follow-up, the researches found that found that people who adhered to a Mediterranean diet very closely had a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. and their risk were reduced by 83 percent.

It is however very important to emphasize that major health benefits may not be entirely due to the diet alone.  A healthy diet should always partner with healthy lifestyle including more physical activity.  All these require no shortcut but plain discipline!

A Healthy Diet For More Wealth!