Can coffee reduce your risk of diabetes?

By HFG expert Tracy Kelly, registered dietitian and clinical adviser at Diabetes UK

Coffee lovers will no doubt be rejoicing after being greeted with headlines such as ‘Drink more coffee to slash risk of diabetes’. But before you pour yourself a double espresso, let’s look more closely at the new study behind the news stories.

  

Scientists at Harvard School of Public Health looked at data on almost 128,000 healthcare professionals who, over two decades, were asked regularly about their diet. During that time 7,300 of them developed type 2 diabetes.

Those who boosted their coffee intake by more than a cup a day had an 11% lower risk of developing diabetes, while those who cut their consumption by more than a cup a day had a 17% higher risk of the disease. The researchers also found that people who drank three cups of coffee or more were 37% less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who drank one cup or less. The researchers suggest that coffee could decrease glucose levels in the blood.

The trouble is, at the moment that is speculation. They haven’t proved it was the coffee itself that was responsible for the increase or decrease in risk.

Think about it this way. What if you at a high risk of developing type 2 diabetes and were trying to make some lifestyle changes, perhaps including a reduction in your coffee intake? You would still be at a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the first place but you would be drinking less coffee.

You might also decide to reduce your coffee intake as you get older. We know that your risk of type 2 diabetes increases as you get older, so in this case your age would be the key influence on your risk, rather than your coffee intake.

On first glance at this study, it might seem that upping your coffee intake is an easy solution if you want to reduce your risk of developing type 2 diabetes, but at the moment we simply can’t say it will make the slightest difference. Being overweight is the biggest risk factor for type 2 diabetes, accounting for more than 80% of the overall risk of developing the condition. The best way to reduce your risk therefore to maintain a healthy weight by eating a healthy, balanced diet low in fat, sugar and salt and high in fruit and vegetables and by being regularly physically active.

Our advice would be to keep walking past the coffee shop and on to the gym, the hills or the park. 

How to cut your risk of type 2 diabetes

By Tracy Kelly, Diabetes UK

Diabetes levels are soaring with no signs of slowing down.

New figures just released by Diabetes UK show that the number of people diagnosed with diabetes in the UK has increased to more than 3.2 million. This is the biggest increase in a single year since 2008, with 163,000 more cases in 2013 than there were in 2012.

These figures demonstrate that the sharp rise of new cases over the last decade shows no signs of slowing down. Even more worrying is that if we continue on this trajectory it is predicted there will be 5 million people affected by diabetes in the UK by 2025.

Type 2 diabetes accounts for most of the increase and one of the main reasons for this is the high obesity rate. Being overweight is a significant risk factor for type 2 diabetes, while other factors include genetics, age and ethnicity. We need more people to be aware of diabetes, more people to know their risk of developing type 2 diabetes and more people being supported to reduce their risk of developing it.

The big increase in the number of people with diabetes confirms that we are in the middle of an unfolding public health disaster  and  it is frightening to think that one in 17 people you walk past in the street has been diagnosed with the condition. This doesn’t include the 630,000 who have diabetes but don’t yet know it. The time to act is now! 

Apart from campaigning for better public awareness, better prevention programmes for type 2 diabetes and better care for everyone with diabetes, we need to address the obesity crisis by making healthy food cheaper and more accessible and by making it easier for people to build physical activity into their daily lives.

We’d really encourage Healthy Food Guide readers to find out more about diabetes by visiting www.diabetes.org.uk. You can also find out your risk of developing type 2 diabetes by taking a quick online risk assessment (www.diabetes.org.uk/risk) or discussing your concerns with your nurse or doctor.  Taking action now could help you to significantly reduce your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.

Easy ways to cut down on sugar

The Action on Sugar campaign was launched yesterday to tackle concerns that we’re all consuming too much sugar. 

While the debate rages on what can be done about the national obesity problem, here are Healthy Food Guide’s practical tips on how to reduce your own sugar intake – plus we reveal which foods are higher in sugar than you may have thought.

7 ways to replace the white stuff:

1.     Get baking – if you like the occasional cake or biscuit, make your own so you can control the ingredients (you can normally halve the sugar content without affecting the quality). Look out for healthier sweet recipes in the pages of HFG.

2.     Try sugar substitutes – natural products like stevia are sweeter than sugar, with fewer calories.

3.     Use spices for flavour without the sugar – try cinnamon, mixed spice and ginger in stewed fruits, porridge and puddings.

4.     Watch the drinks – alcohol, fizzy drinks and juices are an easy way to overload on sugar without noticing. Try sparkling water with lemon slices and fresh mint sprigs, chilled herbal teas or diluted juice.

5.     Look out for hidden sugar in unlikely foods (see below) – look for ingredients ending in ‘ose’ on the ingredients label and check out the value for sugars: less than 5g per 100g is considered low in sugar while more than 15g per 100g is considered high (although this value refers to all sugars, not just added ones).

6.     Choose lower-sugar versions of cereals, baked beans, soups, canned tomatoes and ketchup.

7.     Eat fewer processed carbohydrates such as white bread, croissants, muffins, biscuits, cakes, chocolate and sweets. These convert rapidly to glucose in the blood, so high levels may contribute to energy highs and lows and cravings. Switch to wholegrains instead.

Do you know where sugar is lurking?

Food doesn’t have to taste sweet to contain sugar. Check out some of the more unlikely products you’ll find it in if you look closely…

* 30g cornflakes = ½tsp

* 1tbsp salad cream = ½tsp

* 1tbsp balsamic vinegar = ½tsp

* 1 slice bread = ½tsp

* 1tbsp tomato ketchup = 1tsp

* Half a large tin mushroom soup = 1tsp

* 2tbsp coleslaw = 1tsp

* A third of a jar of salsa = 1tsp

* 30g branflakes = 1½tsp

* 125g ready made Bolognese sauce = 2tsp

* 400g lasagna ready meal = 3tsp

* 400g chicken tikka masala ready meal = 3½tsp

Sugar in our diets: what's the risk?

By Paul McArdle, British Dietetic Association dietitian and diabetes specialist

The newly launched Action on Sugar Campaign is pushing for a reduction of 20-30% in the amount of sugars in our diet – sugar hidden in products we buy and the sugar we add to our food and drink. Can our sweet addiction really put us at risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes?

It's true most of us are consuming too much sugar, and much of the sugar we consume is already in pre-packaged or convenience foods.

Although sugar has fewer than half the calories of fat, it's very easy to consume large quantities of it, especially in the form of drinks, which doesn't leave you feeling very full or satisfied. Often foods with added sugar provide very few nutritional benefits and, therefore, 'empty calories'.

The British Dietetic Association (BDA) supports the call by the campaign group Action on Sugar for the food industry to reduce the sugar added to foods. If successful, the reduction in sugar may contribute to cutting the number of calories people are eating.

This is the main problem: the sugar we eat is part of a diet which is already too high in calories – indeed it may be contributing to this, and therefore to the increasing numbers of people who are overweight and obese. Small amounts of sugar, as part of a balanced diet and in people who are successfully managing their weight, is not necessarily a problem. Moreover, there are no research studies that have proved eating sugar causes type 2 diabetes. However, there are studies that look at links between dietary patterns and the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

One such link is sugar-sweetened beverages. A very large study of men found an association between drinking sugar-sweetened beverages and developing type 2 diabetes. Over a 20-year period, it showed a 24% increased risk for those with the highest intakes of these drinks. This doesn't demonstrate they are the cause of the diabetes in the study population, as different types of research studies would be needed to determine that. Watch this space.

A breakthrough for type 2 diabetes?

By Tracy Kelly

Can we put type 2 diabetes into long-term remission? It’s a question that’s asked often and to date we don’t have the answer – but that could all change within a few years. 

That’s because Diabetes UK has recently awarded a £2.4 million research grant to look into whether losing weight – and keeping it off – through a low-calorie liquid diet is a feasible long-term treatment for putting type 2 diabetes into remission.  

As part of the Diabetes Remission Clinical Trial (DiRECT) study, researchers will recruit 280 overweight people with type 2 diabetes and put them on two separate diets. This new trial follows a 2011 study that found that 11 overweight people with type 2 diabetes saw their insulin production return to normal and their type 2 diabetes put into remission after eight weeks on a low-calorie liquid diet. 

Following the huge media interest in this study, many people with type 2 diabetes were interested in this approach. But as exciting as these findings were, the study did not focus on the effects of the diet in the long term and there is still much about low-calorie diets that we are yet to understand.

As part of the new trial, one group of 140 people will spend between eight and 20 weeks on a low-calorie diet of 800 calories a day – mainly nutritionally complete diet soups or shakes, plus ample fluids. Then, as normal food is reintroduced, they will learn how to change their lifestyles permanently. 

The results of this group will be compared with an equal number in the second group, who will follow what is currently accepted as the best advice for weight loss and weight maintenance. 

Both groups will be monitored for two years to study the long-term effects of their diets on weight. MRI scans will look at what’s happening inside their bodies during the diet.

The aim is to see whether the stress and effort of following a restrictive diet for several months is beneficial in the long run. After all, 800 calories is not a lot – people following such a diet are likely to feel hungry quite a lot of the time. Also, will they be able to stick to it for long enough for it to be successful? Even more fundamentally, this kind of diet is not an easy option or a ‘quick fix’ and people will still have to follow a healthy lifestyle afterwards to stop their type 2 diabetes coming back. It’s a fact that weight regain after liquid diets is common.

Type 2 diabetes will always be a serious condition, but perhaps it won’t always be seen as a condition that people have to manage for the rest of their lives – and that inevitably gets worse. If this study shows that low-calorie liquid diets can be used safely, on a bigger scale and as part of routine care, it could completely change what we know about type 2 diabetes and how it is treated by the NHS. It could also provide an accessible way to help people with this condition live longer, with a better quality of life and a reduced risk of serious health complications.  

For more information about the trial visit www.diabetes.org.uk/DiRECT

Fight the Fads

Join HFG in our bid to help the nation get fit and healthy without going to extremes... At Healthy Food Guide we champion good health and gradual weight loss through healthy eating.

Our new mission: fight the fads – make every meal healthiersays no to fasting or denial, and a resounding yes to eating tasty, satisfying meals and doing some moderate exercise every week. We don’t ban foods, expect you to go teetotal or ask you to exist on under 1,400 a day. Instead, we have along-term solution.

HFG nutrition consultant Juliette Kellow explains: ‘Dramatically cutting calories makes you feel tired and causes you to become deficient in certain nutrients, especially if you restrict whole groups of foods, such as carbs, dairy or meat. The pattern with fad diets is that you see them as having a start and a finish: you dramatically change what you eat, lose weight quickly – and then go back to your previous eating habits, at which point the pounds pile back on. The key is to ditch the fads and, instead, make healthy eating the new normal.’

HFG’s top healthy eating tips…

Get the balance right Check your meals match the Department of Health’s Eatwell plate (nhs.uk/livewell/goodfood/pages/eatwell-plate.aspx)

Avoid fad diets that mean cutting out groups of nutrients, such as carbs or dairy.

Eat a variety of foods daily, so you get a range of nutrients for good health. In particular, make sure you get a minimum of five portions of fruit and veg.

Swap white pasta, rice and bread for wholegrains, which have a lower GI and provide slow-release energy.

Have healthy snacks to hand, so that you won’t want to reach for junk food options.

Re-introducemealtimes at the table instead of on the sofa in front of the TV.

Expand your healthy eating recipe repertoire, so you never get bored – choose an HFG recipe to cook today, then pass it on to a friend.

SHARE A HEALTHY DISH – every month on Healthy Food Guide’s Facebook page, you’ll find a healthy recipe for you to print off to cook, and share with friends. Find it at facebook.com/healthyfoodguideuk.

ONE CLICK TO SUPPORT US If you agree with this statement: ‘I support Healthy Food Guide’s Fight the Fads mission to banish extreme diets and make every meal healthier’, and want to help us spread our message, then go to thunderclap.it on 25 June. You’ll find our campaign in the ‘Health’ category – just click the link to support us (we’re also posting the link on our HFG Facebook and Twitter pages). On 5 August, your pledge will appear on your own Facebook page or Twitter feed with our message. Job done!