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The Best Diet for Diabetes
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Mar 2, 2025
The case for using a plant-based diet to reduce the burden of diabetes has never been stronger. all a plant-based diet could do is prevent and reverse the number one killer of men and women (heart disease), shouldn’t it be the default diet until proven otherwise? Yet the evidence for the benefits of a more plant-based diet continues to emerge for a variety of other life-threatening chronic diseases.
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there are all sorts of different scoring
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systems to rate diet quality my favorite
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for its Simplicity is the dietary
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phytochemical index of fancy name for a
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simple concept it's just the percentage
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of your calories from Whole plant Foods
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so 0er to 100 the average American diet
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has a score of 12 12 out of 100 so like
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on a scale of 1 to 10 our diet is a one
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you can split people up based on how
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they score and show how the higher you
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score the better your metabolic markers
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when it comes to diabetes risk there
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appears to be like this stepwise drop in
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insulin resistance and Insulin producing
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beta cell dysfunction as you eat more
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and more plant-based and that highest
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group was only scoring about 30 less
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than a third of their diet was whole
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plant foods but better than the lowest
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which was down around the standard
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American diet
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no wonder diet centered around plants
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emphasizing legums beans splies chick
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bees let those whole grains vegetables
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fruits nuts and seeds and discouraging
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most or all animal products are
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especially potent in preventing type 2
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diabetes and as a little bonus has been
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associated with much lower rates of
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obesity hypertension hyper lipidemia
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cardiovascular mortality and cancer and
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not just preventing type 2 diabetes but
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treating it as well
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a systematic review and metaanalysis
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found that the consumption of vegetarian
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diets is associated with improved blood
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sugar control but how much improved
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here's one of the latest trials the
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effect of a strictly plant-based diet
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centered around brown rice it was done
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in Asia versus the conventional diabetic
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diet on blood sugar control of patients
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with type 2 diabetes a 12we randomized
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clinical trial for the diabetic control
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diet they set up food exchanges and
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calculated specific calorie and Portion
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controls whereas on the plant-based diet
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people could eat as much as they want
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that's one of the benefits the emphasis
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is on food quality rather than quantity
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and they still actually lost more weight
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but even after controlling for the
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greater abdominal fat loss in the
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plant-based group they still one out of
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course it only works if you actually do
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it but those that pretty much stuck to
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the healthier diet drop their A1C levels
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uh .9% uh which is what you get taking
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the leading diabetes drug but of course
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only with good side
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effects yeah but would it work in an
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underserved population the impact of a
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plant-based diet support program on
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mitigating type 2 diabetes in San
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Bernardino the poorest city of its size
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in California a randomized controll
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trial but not of a plant-based diet
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itself as the title suggests but of just
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an education program telling people
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about the benefits of a plant-based diet
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for diabetes and then it was up to them
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and still got a significant Improvement
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in blood sugar control here are the
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numbers got a little better in the
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control group but way better in the
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plant-based instruction and support
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group and more plant-based diets are not
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just effective in the prevention and
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management of diabetes but also its
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complications check this out one of the
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most devastating complications of
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diabetes is kidney failure this shows
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the decline in kidney function in eight
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diabetics in the one or two years before
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switching their diets they all showed
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this steady inexorable decline on a fast
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track to complete kidney failure and
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dialysis but then they switched to a
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special supplemented vegan diet and
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their kidney decline was stopped in its
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tracks imagine if they had switched a
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year or two earlier most diabetics don't
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actually end up on dialysis though
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because they die first cardiovascular
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disease is the major cause of premature
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mortality among diabetics that's why
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plant-based diets are perfect there's a
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general scientific consensus that the
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elements of a whole food plant-based
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diet legumes whole grains fruits
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vegetables and nuts with limited or no
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intake of processed foods and animal
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products are highly beneficial for
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preventing and treating type 2 diabetes
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equally important plantbase dietes
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address the bigger picture by
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simultaneously treating cardiovascular
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disease our number one killer along with
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obesity high blood pressure lowering
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inflammation and we can throw cancer
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into the mix to our number two killer
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the bottom line is that the case for
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using a plant-based diet to reduce the
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burden of diabetes and improve overall
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health has never been stronger
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#Blood Sugar & Diabetes
#Food
#Fruits & Vegetables
#Nutrition
#Special & Restricted Diets
#Weight Loss