Diabetes Risk Lowered By Antioxidants

Middle-age women who consume fruits and vegetables high in antioxidants may have a lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to the findings of a recent study.

In their study, the researchers analyzed dietary data from 64,223 women who were involved in the French E3N-European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition cohort (mean age 52 years). During the 15 years of follow-up, 1751 women were diagnosed with diabetes.
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The researchers estimated the total antioxidant capacity women consumed using the ferric ion-reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) method. In addition, they calculated hazard ratios (HRs) for developing type 2 diabetes using Cox proportional hazards regression models that adjusted for potential confounders.

Overall, the researchers found that higher levels of total antioxidant capacity were associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Compared with women in the lowest quintile for total antioxidant capacity, the HRs were 0.74, 0.70, and 0.73 for women in the third, fourth, and fifth quintiles, respectively.

In addition, the researchers found that this inverse association was linear up to values of 15 mmol/day, after which the effect reached a plateau.

“Our findings suggest that the total antioxidant capacity may play an important role in reducing the risk of type 2 diabetes in middle-aged women,” the researchers concluded. “More studies are warranted to better understand the biological mechanisms underlying this inverse association.”

—Melissa Weiss

Reference:

Mancini FR, Affret A, Dow C, et al. Dietary antioxidant capacity and risk of type 2 diabetes in the large prospective E3N-EPIC cohort [published online November 9, 2017]. Diabetologia. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00125-017-4489-7.