In the study, 215 overweight people with diabetes followed either a classic, low-fat regimen (based on American Heart Association guidelines) or a higher-fat, Mediterranean-style diet (lots of olive oil, as well as vegetables, whole grains, and fish and poultry). After four years, both groups had lost similar amounts of weight-but only 44 percent of the Mediterranean-style eaters needed diabetes drugs, compared with 70 percent of the low-fat dieters.
The benefits come partly because a Mediterranean diet is full of healthy foods and partly because it doesn’t rely on fat-reduced foods high in refined carbs, says Dariush Mozaffarian, MD, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Read on to find out which foods will help your blood sugar.
Eat less of these: Butter, margarine, butter substitue
And more of these: Extra-virgin olive oil or other vegetable oils such as soy bean and canola