Weekly servings of boiled, baked or mashed potatoes weren’t associated with an elevated risk of Type 2 diabetes — but french fries were.
Craving french fries? Dunking your spuds in a deep fryer might be a recipe for elevating your risk of Type 2 diabetes.
According to a study published Wednesday in the journal BMJ, swapping out your weekly dose of frites for boiled, baked or mashed potatoes could lower your risk of this chronic condition.
The authors examined the diets of more than 205,000 adults in the U.S. who responded to questionnaires about what they ate over nearly four decades. Among those who consumed potatoes, the authors looked at which people developed Type 2 diabetes, a disease that leads to persistently high blood sugar levels.
The chronically elevated blood sugar is mainly caused by insulin resistance. Insuline resistance isn’t necessarily caused by eating too many carbs. One of the known risk factors is obesity, and seems to stem from the fat tissue itself and not from the food that has caused the obesity. I’m not saying that eating too many carbs is harmless, but I’m just pointing that it’s more complicated than that.