Healthy Diet Patterns Lower Type 2 Diabetes Risk Across Ethnicities: Meta-Analysis of 800,000+ Individuals shows

A large new meta-analysis of more than 800,000 participants to be presented at this year's Annual Meeting of the European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD) in Vienna, Austria (15-19 September) shows that high adherence to three well-established healthy eating patterns is linked to a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, regardless of one’s ethnicity. The study is led by PhD student and Gates Cambridge Scholar Ms Jia Yi Lee, Professor Nita Forouhi, and colleagues from the MRC Epidemiology Unit, University of Cambridge, UK.

The study investigated three healthy dietary patterns: the Mediterranean Diet, the Alternative Healthy Eating Index (AHEI), and the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH). All three have been recommended for general health and their potential to reduce chronic disease risk.

Through a systematic search of published studies, the authors identified 33 publications reporting the association between these dietary patterns and type 2 diabetes. When all the available evidence was combined, the results showed that people who were in the top 10% for adherence to each dietary pattern had significantly lower risks of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those with the 10% lowest adherence : a 17% lower risk for the Mediterranean Diet, a 21% lower risk for AHEI, and a 23% lower risk for the DASH diet. Importantly, the potential benefits of these dietary patterns did not appear to vary significantly across African, Asian, European, and Hispanic ethnic groups, despite known ethnic differences in dietary culture, as well as diabetes risk.