Vegan Diet Outshines ADA Diet

Since we had the honor of an e-visit from the distinguished Dr. Neal Barnard, and in light of our previous post describing the suspension of the intensive blood glucose treatment arm (medication-based) of the large ACCORD trial, I present the findings of one of Dr. Barnard's more recent studies - one that finds benefit without the use of drugs.

Barnard, et al's study which appeared in the August 2006 issue of Diabetes Care,¹ found that people with diabetes who followed a low-fat, vegan diet saw improvements in HbA1c, body weight, BMI, waist circumference, total cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol that were significantly greater than improvements in a group following an ADA diet (which adhered to American Diabetes Association guidelines).

Participants (n=99) were followed for 22 weeks, at the end of which:

"Among participants whose diabetes medications remained unchanged throughout, A1C fell 1.23 points in the vegan group and 0.38 points in the ADA group (P = 0.01)."

"Body weight decreased 6.5 kg (14.3 lbs) in the vegan group and 3.1 kg (6.8 lbs) in the ADA group (P < 0.001)."

"Among those who did not change lipid-lowering medications, LDL cholesterol fell 21.2% in the vegan group and 10.7% in the ADA group (P = 0.02)."

A vegan diet includes grains, legumes, vegetables, and fruits, and excludes animal products. The vegan diet in this study also excluded added fats.



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¹ A Low-Fat Vegan Diet Improves Glycemic Control and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in a Randomized Clinical Trial in Individuals With Type 2 Diabetes

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