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Low fat Vegan Diet Surpasses ADA Diet

Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Recent research from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition supplies more evidence that a low-fat vegan diet is better than a conventional diabetes diet for managing blood glucose and cholesterol.¹

People with type 2 diabetes were assigned to either a low-fat, vegan diet (49 participants) or a diet adhering to the 2003 American Diabetes Association (ADA) guidelines (50 participants).

After about a year and a half (74 weeks), members in both groups lost weight, but the difference between them wasnt significant: 4.4 kg (9.7 lbs) wt. loss in the vegan group, 3.0 kg (6.6 lbs) weight loss in the ADA group.

However, there was a significant difference between the groups in the following measures:

• Hb A1c:
  -0.40 for the vegan diet
  -0.01 for the ADA diet
  
  
• Total cholesterol (mg/dL):
  -20.4 for the vegan diet
  -6.8 for the ADA diet
  
  
• LDL cholesterol (mg/dL):
  -13.5 for the vegan diet
  -3.4 for the ADA diet

The authors concluded:

"Both diets were associated with sustained reductions in weight and plasma lipid concentrations. In an analysis controlling for medication changes, a low-fat vegan diet appeared to improve glycemia and plasma lipids more than did conventional diabetes diet recommendations."

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¹ A Low-Fat Vegan Diet And A Conventional Diabetes Diet In The Treatment Of Type 2 Diabetes: A Randomized, Controlled, 74-Wk Clinical Trial, AJCN, May 2009

Photo of vegan pyramid: Nutrispeak.com, the home page of Vesanto Melina, MS RD.