Diabetic people can live longer if vegetables, fruits in diet: study

People suffering from diabetes can reduce the risk of heart and cancer diseases by eating a diet comprising fewer animal products, low levels of carbohydrates, with a lot of vegetables and fruits, according to a study from the Harvard T H Chan School of Public Health.

The study suggested that those people who do not intake high-crab and highly processed meat products in America tend to live longer.

The study was conducted with the participation of 10,000 diabetic people in the long-running in which their diet was observed for more than a decade. Half of them died while under investigation. The causes were: 900 of them died due to cancer and 1,400 from cardiovascular illness.

It was revealed in the study that diabetic patients who consumed less carbohydrate food or other carbohydrates [refined], had a lesser risk of dying.

Qi Sun, the lead author of the study said that a diet containing low carbohydrates including ketogenic oil is easy during research trials however, it is difficult to use in the real world for the long term.

Therefore, he specified diabetic people whose carbohydrate intake was 30 to 40% realistic. In America, people get 50% to 60% of their calories from refined carbohydrates such as products made with white rice, refined wheat and white bread.

It is necessary to keep sugary drinks aside, said the lead author Sun, and refined carbohydrates products including dairy food products containing high fats, unhealthy protein, beef, red meat, preserved or packaged cookies and so on.

He was of the view that "Improving diet quality" — eating more grains, vegetables and fruits — is an important nutritional suggestion. Such food can also help control excessive weight gain, he added.