Can diet prevent diabetes?

Four hundred fifteen million adults worldwide were living with diabetes in 2015 (global prevalence 8.8%), and the estimate is projected to rise to more than 642 million by 2040 (International Diabetes Federation, 2016). Just ten years ago (Diabetes Atlas, third edition, 2006), the same IDF projected the number of people with diabetes to 380 million by 2025, a number that have already (and largely) been surpassed today. Really, diabetes looks like an epidemic out of control. These numbers also find support from the 2014 NCD (Non Communicable Diseases) Risk-Factor Collaboration report which estimated 422 million people worldwide were living with diabetes, roughly a four-fold increase over the past 35 years (Anonymous, 2016). The list of leading risk factors for NCD includes multiple components of diet, and poor diets constitute the number-one driver of the global burden of diseases (International Food Policy Research Institute, 2016). Nutritional interventions focused on lifestyle changes aimed at reducing weight loss are effective in staving off the progression toward type 2 diabetes in people at high risk of developing diabetes (American Diabetes Association, 2016; Knowler et al., 2002; Ramachandran et al., 2006; Tuomilehto et al., 2001).