A paper has just appeared in the “The British Medical Journal” assessing the impact of fruit on Type 2 diabetes. The investigators from the UK, the US and Singapore analysed data from the Nurses' Health Study, which ran from 1984-2008; the Nurses' Health Study II (1991-2009); and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (1986-2008).
More than 187,000 nurses and other health workers took part. Their health was monitored over the following years, and they regularly answered questionnaires on their eating habits, weight, smoking, physical activity and other pointers to lifestyle.
The strong indication from the study was quite astonishing. It appears that consumption of whole fruits, especially blueberries, grapes and apples, reduced their risk of type 2 diabetes by as much as 23 percent compared to those who ate less than one serving per month. The astonishing aspect of the study was that while consumption of solid fruits has a clearly beneficial impact on type 2 diabetes, it appears that consuming the fruit in liquidized form has the opposite effect. Fruit juices appeared to have a deleterious result. Fruit juices lead to more rapid and larger changes in serum [blood] levels of glucose and insulin than whole fruits. Swapping three servings of juice per week for whole fruits resulted in a seven-percent reduction in risk, although there was no such difference with strawberries and cantaloupe melon. The BMJ paper concludes that it is important further to research this difference.
That eating whole fruit is good is not really a surprise, although its impact on Type 2 diabetes is interesting. However, the readers of the news items on this site will know that ADNO can greatly assist in ameliorating Type 2 diabetes, which is itself the seventh greatest killer and accelerates hardening of the arteries and can raise blood pressure.
In one study thirty patients with diabetes mellitus received two grams of oral L-arginine a day, while the control group received placebos. After three months, those receiving Arginine showed signs of significantly decreased lipid peroxidation (Green and Nacy, “Antimicrobial and Imunopathologic Effects of Cytkine-Induced Nitric Oxide Synthesis,” “Current Opinion in Infectious Diseases, 6 (1993), 384-396). Further research has shown ADNO increases levels of hormone insulin in Type 2 diabetics (Schmidt et al, “Insulin Secretion from Pancreatic B Cells Caused by L-Arginine-Derived Nitogen Oxides,” Science, 255 (1992), 721-723) and has reduced collagen accumulation in diabetic mice (Joffe et al, “Impaired Nitric Oxide Availability Contributes to the Cardiovascular Dysfunction of Diabetes,” “Circulation” (abstracts), 96 (1997), 1518).
“The Arginine Solution” concludes, “First, blood levels of arginine are reduced by diabetes. Second, oral supplements can bring these levels back up to normal. And third, this boosts nitric oxide production, which restores blood vessel function and improves other pathological changes caused by diabetes.”
There is therefore a convincing case that whole fruit can ameliorate Type 2 diabetes, but a more convincing case exists for Arginine supplementation. What is more blueberries work out much more expensive, though Arginine supplementation and a good diet are absolutely not mutually exclusive.
