If a poor diet can help usher in type 2 diabetes, here’s some good news: a healthy high-fiber diet can help keep it under control.
In the last few decades, researchers have gotten a fix on what role specific foods might play in the development of type 2 diabetes. A six-year study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that women who ate a high-sugar, low-fiber diet — including soft drinks, white bread, white rice, and mashed potatoes — were two-and-a-half times more likely to get diabetes than women who ate plenty of roughage.
Based on data from 65,000 women participating in the long-running Nurses’ Health Study at Harvard University, this was the first large-scale study to uncover a dietary link to diabetes.
Roughage lowers the need for insulin by slowing the absorption of carbohydrates, and preventing surges in blood sugar, scientists explain, while a sugary low-fiber diet is likely to induce a chronic demand for
