The Vegan Advantage

People with Type 2 diabetes should consider going vegan. In a study recently published by the American Diabetes Association (ADA), Dr. David Jenkins, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine, and colleagues report that a low-fat vegan diet improves glycemic control – even more effectively than the ADA diet.

During the study, those following the vegan diet said no to meat, poultry, fish, dairy and eggs, but could eat as many vegetables, grains, legumes and temperate-climate fruit (such as apples, as opposed to, say, papayas) as they wanted. In contrast, those following the ADA diet practised portion control, counting every carb and calorie. At the end of the study, the vegans had lost an average of 14 pounds; the meat-eaters only 6.8 pounds.Among the vegans, LDL (the “lousy”) cholesterol levels averaged a drop of 21 per cent, compared to 10 per cent in the other group. And improvements in blood-sugar management were three times greater in those who had gone vegan.

Jenkins has already shown that soy, almonds, barley and oats can lower LDL levels. But the stunning results of this study must be personally satisfying for Jenkins who turned vegetarian at age 13, shortly after his mother tried to serve him his pet chicken.