A salty twist: Diabetes risk study says french fries are a culprit
A salty twist: Diabetes risk study says french fries are a culprit
A salty twist: Diabetes risk study says french fries are a culprit
Weekly servings of boiled, baked or mashed potatoes weren’t associated with an elevated risk of Type 2 diabetes — but french fries were.
Craving french fries? Dunking your spuds in a deep fryer might be a recipe for elevating your risk of Type 2 diabetes.
According to a study published Wednesday in the journal BMJ, swapping out your weekly dose of frites for boiled, baked or mashed potatoes could lower your risk of this chronic condition.
The authors examined the diets of more than 205,000 adults in the U.S. who responded to questionnaires about what they ate over nearly four decades. Among those who consumed potatoes, the authors looked at which people developed Type 2 diabetes, a disease that leads to persistently high blood sugar levels.
Oh, Jesus Christ... Okay, I'm pretty sure this a correlation/causation thing.
Let me ask you, where do you usually eat french fries in the United States? Think about it for a minute.
Did you answer at a fast food place? Because while I don't have any data on hand I'm pretty sure that's the correct answer. At least I know that's where I eat most of my fries. So assuming that's correct the headline transforms to "People who regularly eat fast food are at higher risk for diabetes".
No fucking duh.
These types of studies can literally only detect correlation. They look at massive data sets and yank out patterns. It's closer to reading tea leaves than hard science.
Yes, but since Diabetes Type 2 is chronically elevated blood sugar, cutting out carbs does seem highly logical.
The chronically elevated blood sugar is mainly caused by insulin resistance. Insuline resistance isn’t necessarily caused by eating too many carbs. One of the known risk factors is obesity, and seems to stem from the fat tissue itself and not from the food that has caused the obesity. I’m not saying that eating too many carbs is harmless, but I’m just pointing that it’s more complicated than that.
Sure, but it's not the whole story, since people can eat massive amounts of carbs and sugar. Entire populations have lived very healthy lives on 90%+ starchy foods. It's other factors as well. Fats for example can inhibit the muscles from taking in sugars, changing the resulting insulin response.