Whole food plant-based diet improves postprandial glycaemia in T1D

Consumption of whole plant-based foods results in improvements in health outcomes among individuals with type 1 diabetes (T1D), suggests a study.

A total of 7,938 meals from 367 participants were included in the analysis. The investigators used prospectively collected meal events from the Type 1 Diabetes Exercise Initiative to explore the effect of whole food plant-based diet (WFPBD) intake on glycaemia, as determined by the plant-based diet index (PDI). The PDI estimates overall, healthful (hPDI), and unhealthy PDI (uPDI) to measure the degree of processed foods and animal products.

In addition, a mixed effects linear regression model was used to assess time in range (TIR), time above range, and time below range.

Increasing hPDI scores improved TIR, providing a 4-percent improvement in TIR between the highest and lowest hPDI scores (high hPDI: 75 percent; low hPDI: 71 percent; p<0.001). Moreover, meals with high vs low hPDI had lower glucose excursion (high hPDI: 53 mg/dL; low hPDI: 62 mg/dL; p<0.001) and less time >250 mg/dL (high hPDI: 8 percent; low hPDI: 14 percent; p<0.001).

Such effects were present but less pronounced by PDI (high vs low PDI: 74 percent vs 71 percent; p=0.01). In addition, there were no differences seen in time below 70 and 54 mg/dL by PDI or hPDI.

“Meal events with higher hPDI were associated with 4-percent postprandial TIR improvement,” the investigators said. “These benefits were seen primarily in WFPBD meals and less pronounced plant-based meals, emphasizing the benefit of increasing unprocessed food intake over limiting animal products alone.”