And The Winner Is . . .Blueberries! For a Long Life
According to Nicholas Bakalar, some fruits are better for you than others, but eating a variety is the best. Writing at nytimes.com, Bakalar says, "Recent studies have found that eating a greater variety, but not a greater quantity, of fruit significantly reduces the risk for Type 2 diabetes." This made researchers wonder whether some fruits might have a stronger effect than others, he adds. Tracking diet and disease prospectively over a 12-year period in more than 185,000 people, of whom 12,198 developed Type 2 diabetes, researchers found "some fruits — strawberries, oranges, peaches, plums and apricots — had no significant effect on the risk for Type 2 diabetes. But eating grapes, apples and grapefruit all significantly reduced the risk." The big winner: blueberries, Bakalr reports. "Eating one to three servings a month decreased the risk by about 11 percent, and having five servings a week reduced it by 26 percent." What's interesting is t...