Potatoes aren’t always bad for you: It all depends on the preparation, a new study indicates
A new study shares some sympathy for a much reviled vegetable: the potato.
He discovered that the way the potato is prepared, including what people add to it, is what is associated with Type 2 diabetesinstead of the “humble” vegetable itself.
The study was published in Diabetes Care, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Diabetes Association for health care providers.
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Previous research had shown an association between diabetes and total potato consumption.
A team of Australian researchers, led by Dr. Nicola Bondonno from Edith Cowan University’s Health and Nutrition Innovation Research Institute, explored the relationship between vegetable intake and the incidence of type 2 diabetes.
Participants in a new study completed a 192-item “food frequency questionnaire” at the start of the study. The researchers looked at the relationship between potato consumption and the incidence of type 2 diabetes.
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The researchers also examined the relationship between potato consumption and the incidence of type 2 diabetes.
More than 54,000 participants, aged 50 to 64 years, were recruited from the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health cohort, which examined the relationship between dietary components and cancer incidence and other chronic diseases.
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Participants completed a 192-item “food frequency questionnaire” at the start of the study.
Those who participated noted how often they ate a particular food over the past 12 months, said co-author Pratik Pokharel, a doctoral candidate who worked on the paper’s analysis.
“Food and nutrient intake were then estimated using standard recipes and FoodCalc software,” Pokharel told Fox News Digital.
Eating more vegetables may equate to a lower risk of diabetes
The researchers found that those with the highest total intake of vegetables had a 21% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, compared with the group with the lowest intake of vegetables, after adjusting for lifestyle and confounding variables. demographics.
Freshly harvested potatoes are shown covered in soil. Plain boiled potatoes were not associated with an increased risk of diabetes, according to a new study.
(Edwin Remsburg/VW Pics via Getty Images)
They also found that participants with the highest potato intake had a 9% increased risk of type 2 diabetes, compared to the group that ate the lowest daily amount.
Boiled potatoes are key
“When we separated boiled potatoes from mashed potatoes, French fries, or french fries, boiled potatoes were no longer associated with increased risk of diabetes. They had no effect,” Pokharel said in a news release.
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The study found that those who ate the most potatoes also consumed more butter, red meat and soft drinks, which are known to increase the risk of type 2 diabetes.
“When you take that into account, boiled potatoes are no longer associated with diabetes,” Pokharel added in the news release.
“It’s just French fries and mashed potatoes, the latter probably because [they’re] usually made with butter, cream and the like”.
Most people don’t eat enough vegetables
Approximately 90% of adults are not found fruit and vegetable recommendationsaccording to the latest dietary guidelines from the United States Department of Agriculture.
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The guidelines recommend that most adults consume two “cup equivalents” of fruit and two and a half “cup equivalents” of vegetables per day.
A variety of fruits and vegetables are displayed. The American Heart Association suggests that fruits and vegetables should fill half your plate at each meal.
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Experts suggest eating four half-cup servings of fruit and five half-cup servings of vegetables each day to put these recommendations into practice.
The American Heart Association suggests that fruits and vegetables should fill half your plate at each meal to meet these goals.
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“One cup of raw leafy vegetables or a baked potato should be about the size of an average-sized baseball or fist,” the association added on its website.
We need to diversify our diet.
Pokharel recommends eating a variety of foods.
“It’s good to replace white rice and pasta with boiled potatoes, since potatoes have fiber, vitamin C and other nutrients, and the potato is still a vegetable,” he said.
“We obtain [certain] nutrients in potatoes that we don’t find in white rice or pasta,” co-author Pratik Pokharel, a doctoral candidate, told Fox News Digital.
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“We get other nutrients from potatoes that we don’t find in white rice or pasta,” he also said.
Refined grains are low in certain nutrients, such as fiber, so they can lead to nutritional deficiencies, he said.
Know the limitations of the study
The study had certain limitations, including that the participants’ diets were self-reported and that the researchers only measured their diets at any given time.
Pokharel said that repeated measurements of dietary intake would give a more accurate estimate of a complete diet.
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He also said the study is only a prospective study, so he can’t establish a causal link between vegetable intake and diabetes, such as pointing out that eating fewer vegetables actually causes diabetes.
Don’t blame certain foods: understand the context
“People rarely eat food in isolation,” Pokharel said.
“We should see the big picture when evaluating the relationship between dietary intake and disease incidence,” he added.
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“It’s crucial to look at the underlying dietary pattern and method of food processing to see what other culprits are rather than blaming one food,” he also said.