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Whole foods may prevent disease; soda and processed meat linked to diabetes Date published: 9/18/2005 By JENNIFER MOTL EATING MORE FRUITS, vegetables, olive oil and perhaps moderate amounts of red wine can reduce your risk of diabetes and heart disease, while eating lots of white bread, hot dogs and sodas may raise your risk of these diseases. This news comes from two separate studies reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition this month. Although researchers looked at people oceans apart, in America and in Greece, both studies looked at eating and included blood tests for signs of inflammation. It is believed that low-level inflammation of blood vessels and tissues can increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, even though the inflammation is so slight that it doesn't cause pain or other symptoms. In one study, scientists from Harvard and from the German Institute of Human Nutrition analyzed information from the first and second Nurses Health Studies, which tracked about 90,000 nurses. They found that nurses who drank lots of sodas and ate lots of refined grains and processed meats, and who avoided wine, coffee, cruciferous vegetables and yellow vegetables, were about three times more likely to develop diabetes than those who ate well. In case you're wondering, the cruciferous family of vegetables includes cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, radishes, turnips and other relatives. Women who ate processed foods and shunned these vegetables showed high levels of inflammation in five separate blood tests, the most familiar of which is C-reactive protein. Women who ate more processed foods and spurned vegetables had 50 percent higher levels of C-reactive protein. This was true even when the scientists made extra calculations to correct for other things that increase inflammation, such as high body mass index, physical activity, smoking, family history of diabetes, and high blood pressure. The researchers concluded that processed foods are causing inflammation, contributing to diabetes. Another study looked at a Western diet versus the traditional, unprocessed foods of the Mediterranean. The study of 3,000 men and women in Attica, Greece, found that those who ate traditional Mediterranean foods had 11 percent more antioxidants in their blood than those who ate a Western or American-style diet. That showed the Mediterranean style was healthier, because high "total antioxidant capacity," nicknamed TAC, reduces risks of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Those with the highest TAC scores ate more fruits, vegetables and olive oil and less red meat.
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