(09-10-13) Forgo the fruit juice and choose fresh fruit instead: Research-proven diabetes protection

by PF Louis

(NaturalNews) Fruit juices are often grabbed off store shelves or out of
refrigerated displays as substitutes for sodas, which have obvious adverse
health effects.

But there are concerns over the sugar spikes inherent with consuming fruit
juices, especially store-bought juices that aren't freshly made. Many of those
have added sugar.

A rather large study involving 187,382 participants totaling 3,464,641 years
of follow-up was concluded recently by three research groups located in the
USA, UK and Singapore. The study determined that eating whole fruits lowered
diabetes type-2 risks while drinking fruit juices increased the diabetes type-2
risk.

A study of this magnitude is accomplished by using large pools of people
(cohorts) followed over time to create data bases that are compiled for
analysis. For this study, the Nurses' Health Study of 1984 - 2008, the Nurses'
Health Study II for 1991-2009 and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study
during 1986 - 2008 were all combined.

All of these studies involve prospective (follow-up) questionnaire surveys
that can be applied to several study scenarios. Also, using health professional
cohorts with their health records and medical testing readily available helps
create a reliable, versatile data base.

The same dietary data and health records compiled could be used for
determining cardiovascular health effects as well as type-2 diabetes. And the
data from those nurses and health professional studies have been used for
several other research topics.

Some study details with mixed reviews with one area of agreement
Head of research for Diabetes UK, Dr. Mathew Hobbs said the study provided
further evidence that eating plenty of whole fruit was a key to minimizing the
risk of diabetes type-2.

And Kamlesh Khunti, professor of primary care diabetes at the University of
Leicester, said the large study showed that eating any fruit is good. These are
two examples of a probable widespread consensus: eating whole fruits is good
for you.

However, Dr. Hobbs was a little less enthusiastic about the study's efforts to
determine which fruits and fruit drinks contributed to less or more type-2
diabetes risks:

"Some of the findings are based on a number of assumptions and models which
may have distorted the results significantly," cautioned Dr. Hobbs. "For
example, the researchers used surveys to ask participants how often they ate
certain foods. This type of survey can often be unreliable as people are more
likely to remember certain types of food."

Indeed, according to the British Medical Journal press release on the study,
participating subjects from the nurse study pools were surveyed for what fruits
and/or fruit juices they consumed and at what frequency every four years.

The fruits used were: Grapes or raisins; peaches, plums or apricots; prunes;
bananas; cantaloupe; apples or pears; oranges; grapefruit; strawberries;
blueberries. Fruit juices included: Apple; orange; grapefruit and other fruit
juices.

This study determined that, while fruit juices generally increased diabetes
risk, whole blueberries could reduce the risk by 33%, grapes and raisins by 19%
and apples and pears by 13%. Strawberries and cantaloupes were the only whole
fruits that didn't fare much better than fruit juices for diabetes risks.

Of course, whole fruits contain fiber and other nutrients that reduce the
glucose spike of fruit juices. This is good news for anyone who is diabetic or
showing signs of heading that way.

However, the flip side of juicing for healing or detoxing should be duly
noted. One example is how Charlotte Gerson recently recovered miraculously from
a serious hip fracture at age 90, the sort of thing that kills older people.

She consumed eight glasses of apple and highly glycemic carrot juices daily,
along with her normal vegetarian food diet, and healed completely in a short
period. Natural News reporter Jonathon Landsman interviewed her (http://www.
naturalhealth365.com).

Sources for this study include:

http://www.bbc.co.uk

http://www.bmj.com

http://www.naturalhealth365.com

http://science.naturalnews.com

News

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In evidenza

"L'informazione presente nel sito serve a migliorare, e non a sostituire, il rapporto medico-paziente."

Per coloro che hanno problemi di salute si consiglia di consultare sempre il proprio medico curante.