A new study suggests that a plant-based diet may help people who have type 1 diabetes manage the condition. We spoke with a dietitian to find out more.
The sample size of 29 is probably fine for a pilot study (and this is called out in their conclusion) and the paper seems reasonable to someone like me with no experience in the field. My main take away from skimming through it is that they largely attribute the difference to the fat content of the diets, spending a significant portion of the discussion on this fact. There’s also an issue where participants were put on meal plans rather than provided actual meals which may further limit the study.
Ultimately I’d say the study is fine-ish, but the reporting is pretty crap. This is actually a particularly bad case because veg news gives a list of reasons why a plant based diet could be better for diabetes that are not really the main conclusions of the study. It really comes across to me like the plant based aspect is coincidental and they didn’t actually test for it. What the paper really did was compare calorie restriction with a low fat diet, there’s no testing to differentiate the effects of the plant based aspect from the low fat content. To me that feels like deliberately misleading study design.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a vegan and don’t doubt the health benefits of the diet (though it’s still easy to be unhealthy as a vegan), but this article is pretty misleading…
I’m gonna be honest, I’m not sure about the reliability of this study. The author conflict of interest deceleration leads to some specific commercial interests in furthering a diet based approach to diabetes, specifically personal coaching and a book which rubs me the wrong way.
The sample size of 29 is probably fine for a pilot study (and this is called out in their conclusion) and the paper seems reasonable to someone like me with no experience in the field. My main take away from skimming through it is that they largely attribute the difference to the fat content of the diets, spending a significant portion of the discussion on this fact. There’s also an issue where participants were put on meal plans rather than provided actual meals which may further limit the study.
Ultimately I’d say the study is fine-ish, but the reporting is pretty crap. This is actually a particularly bad case because veg news gives a list of reasons why a plant based diet could be better for diabetes that are not really the main conclusions of the study. It really comes across to me like the plant based aspect is coincidental and they didn’t actually test for it. What the paper really did was compare calorie restriction with a low fat diet, there’s no testing to differentiate the effects of the plant based aspect from the low fat content. To me that feels like deliberately misleading study design.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a vegan and don’t doubt the health benefits of the diet (though it’s still easy to be unhealthy as a vegan), but this article is pretty misleading…