corn tortillas, was almost one-sixth of the rate of Arizona Pima Indians, who tend to be sedentary and favor high-calorie high-fat Western convenience foods such as hot dogs.
The Arizona Pimas have one of the highest rates of diabetes in the world. Fifty percent of tribe members between the ages of 30 and 64 have type 2 diabetes.
“Our results show that having a genetic predisposition to the disease doesn’t mean that you’ll develop type 2 diabetes,” says Leslie Schultz, a nutritional biochemist with the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee who worked on the study. “If you can control your lifestyle, you can control, to a large extent, whether or not you develop the disease.”
More fiber, less diabetes?
Since Manson’s study, other scientists have done further research on the theory that fiber-rich foods may help prevent type 2 diabetes. A small study published in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that
