Growing Support for Plant-Based Diet.

People with the highest adherence to "overall" predominantly plant-based diets have a 23% lower risk of Type 2 diabetes than those with weaker adherence to the diets, according to a meta-analysis by researchers at the Harvard University School of Public Health, Cambridge, Mass. They also found that the association is stronger for people whose diets emphasize healthy plant-based foods. The study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine.

"Plant-based dietary patterns are gaining popularity in recent years, so we thought it was crucial to quantify their overall association with diabetes risk, particularly since these diets can vary substantially in terms of their food composition," says first author Frank Qian, who conducted the research as a master's student in the Department of Nutrition.

The researchers identified nine studies that looked at the association and were published through February 2019. Their meta-analysis included health data from 307,099 participants with 23,544 cases of Type 2 diabetes. They analyzed adherence to a predominantly plant-based diet, which could include a mix of healthy plant-based foods, such...