A bowl of fresh fruits a day may lower the risk of developing diabetes by 12%, a study has showed.
In individuals with diabetes, consuming fresh fruit more than three days a week was associated with a 17% lower relative risk of dying.
Further, it can lower the risk of developing diabetes-related complications affecting large blood vessels — ischaemic heart disease and stroke — and small blood vessels — kidney diseases, eye diseases, and neuropathy — by 13-28%, the findings revealed.
Although the health benefits of diets including fresh fruit and vegetables are well established, the relatively high sugar content of fruit has led to uncertainty about associated risks of diabetes and of vascular complications of the disease, said Huaidong Du of the University of Oxford.
This has led to frequent abstention from fruit consumption among individuals with diabetes in many parts of the world, he noted in the paper published in the journal PLOS Medicine.
