This Could Protect You From Diabetes.
The numbers are frightening.
That’s the number of individuals worldwide with diabetes.
Over 95 percent of those with diabetes have type 2.
Fortunately, type 2 diabetes is often preventable.
Today, I will share a surprising way you may be able to drop your diabetes risk.
A recent study analyzed the relationship between eating chocolate and type 2 diabetes.
Here are the results:
Eating dark chocolate appeared to reduce risk, but milk chocolate did not.
A Brief Diabetes Overview
Type 2 diabetes is a serious but often preventable condition that disrupts how your body uses sugar for energy.
Here’s a breakdown:
The Problem
- Insulin Resistance occurs when the body doesn’t respond well to insulin, a hormone that helps sugar enter cells for energy. Insulin resistance leads to a buildup of sugar in the blood.
- Long-term Damage: Over time, high blood sugar can damage your nerves and blood vessels, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke, blindness, and kidney failure.
Causes
Lifestyle risk factors include excess weight, being sedentary, and an unhealthy diet.
Inherited genetics plays a role, making you more susceptible if you have family members with type 2 diabetes.
Early Detection is Key
Initial diabetes symptoms can be subtle and easily missed, making regular checkups and blood tests crucial for early diagnosis.
Early detection and management can help prevent or delay serious health problems.
Who’s Affected?
- Most Common Form: Type 2 diabetes accounts for over 95 percent of diabetes cases.
- Rising in Children: While once considered an adult disease, type 2 diabetes is increasingly diagnosed in children, highlighting the importance of healthy lifestyle choices for all ages.
Enter My Favorite, Dark Chocolate
Scientists wanted to figure out if eating chocolate affects the chances of getting type 2 diabetes since past studies haven’t been clear.
They also wanted to see if different kinds of chocolate (like dark versus milk) made a difference; past studies typically did not differentiate.
To address the issue, researchers used information from three big, long-term health studies involving over 190,000 people, mostly nurses and other health professionals.
The included studies were the Nurses’ Health Study, the Nurses’ Health Study II, and the Health Professionals Follow-up Study.
Study Details
The researchers tracked what people ate, including how much and what kinds of chocolate, and whether they developed diabetes over time.
To make the study as accurate as possible, they didn’t include people with diabetes, cancer, or heart problems at the start.
They also considered other factors affecting diabetes risk, like weight, drinking habits, blood pressure, and family history.
Every few years, participants filled out questionnaires about their diet and health.
This approach helped the researchers track any changes and see if there were any patterns between chocolate consumption and diabetes risk.
Study Results: Dark Chocolate Wins
After examining chocolate consumption, the study authors discovered this:
Participants who consumed five or more servings of any chocolate in a week had a roughly one-tenth reduction in type 2 diabetes risk compared to people who never or rarely ate chocolate.
The relationship appeared to be non-linear.
Dark (but not milk) chocolate reduced diabetes risk.
When looking at chocolate subtypes, the benefits appeared to accrue only to dark chocolate.
Moreover, milk chocolate was associated with weight gain.
Participants who weekly consumed five or more servings of dark chocolate had a roughly 20 percent reduction in type 2 diabetes risk compared to people who never or rarely ate chocolate.
This observed reduction translated to a three percent lower risk of diabetes per week of dark chocolate serving.
Dark Chocolate Sounds Good, But Some Caveats
This study, while interesting, has some things to keep in mind:
- Memory isn’t perfect: People had to remember what they ate, and sometimes we forget or don’t report things accurately.
- Different groups, different data: The three groups of people studied weren’t exactly alike, and the information collected from each wasn’t the same, making comparisons tricky.
- Mostly women, mostly white, mostly older: The study participants were mostly female, white, and over 50, and they were all medical professionals. This observation means the results might only apply to some.
- Light chocolate eaters: The people in this study didn’t eat as much chocolate as the average person, so we don’t know if eating more would have a bigger effect. I consume massive amounts of dark chocolate, so I hope more is more!
- Conflicting results: The results weren’t the same across all three groups. Chocolate didn’t seem to matter in one group, while dark chocolate seemed most beneficial in another (the all-male group).
- Other factors: When the researchers considered sugar and other foods linked to diabetes, the link between dark chocolate and diabetes wasn’t as strong. This observation means other factors are probably involved, too.
Bottom line
This study gives us some clues about dark chocolate and diabetes, but it’s not the final word.
More research is needed to confirm these findings and see if they apply to everyone.
I will continue to test the hypothesis that eating a good amount of Ghirardelli dark chocolate promotes my health.
One More Thing
Fortunately, lifestyle changes (beyond dark chocolate consumption) can prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes for most people.
Here are some tactics:
- Maintain a healthy body weight.
- Move: Physical activity, with a minimum of 150 minutes of moderate exercise weekly, can reduce your risk of type 2 diabetes.
- Eat a balanced diet and minimize added sugar and saturated fat.
- Don’t smoke tobacco.
Thank you for reading “This Could Protect You From Diabetes.”
