This study was published in the Nutrition Journal on the 5th of March 2012. It was conducted by the Department of Nutrition at the Regional Hospital, Jutland and the Department of Endocrinology & Metabolism at the Aarhus University Hospital in Denmark.

The study was specifically designed to see if the consumption of whole as grown fruit has any adverse effect on diabetics.

It has been widely advocated that type 2 diabetics should avoid eating fruit as fruit contains sugar.

This is the first study of its kind. It is a randomised trail to address this issue. Researchers recruited 63 overweight men and women who were newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. All the subjects were given nutritional advice as well as how to limit calories. A group was randomly assigned to limit their intake of fruit. The other group were instructed to consume at least two pieces of fruit.

The purpose of doing this was to be able to assess how the different levels of fruit consumption affected their glycosylated hemoglobin which is used to measure blood sugar over time.

The group with restrictions on fruit consumption ingested 135 grams of fruit per day whilst the group encouraged to consume more fruit ingested 320 grams per day.

After 12 weeks both groups had lost weight and had smaller waists however it was found that the group consuming more fruit actually lost more weight.

It was also found that there was no significant difference between the two groups when it came to their blood sugar measurements.

The Authors wrote “Considering the many possible beneficial effects of fruit, we recommend that fruit intake should not be restricted in type 2 diabetic subjects.”

Read the abstract of the study in the Nutrition Journal by following this link

---