Does the link between white potatoes and diabetes extend to potatoes baked without butter or sour cream?
The white potato problem began in 2006, when the Harvard Nurses’ Health Study, which tracked the diet and disease of tens of thousands of women over 20 years, found that higher consumption of potatoes was associated with a higher likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes. However, out of a hundred pounds of American potatoes eat each year, most of them are in the form of deep-fried potato chips, french fries or other processed products. What happened when they looked especially in mashed or baked potatoes? They found a link with diabetes. OK, but what do potato eaters eat the most? Maybe I should repeat that: What do people eat more meat and potatoes than? In fact, people who ate more potatoes ate more meat, and we know that animal protein can be related with an increased risk of diabetes. But the researchers tried to statistically setting for this and still found a lot of risk with potatoes.
Well, what do people do? put on baked and baked potatoes? Butter and sour cream. Again, the researchers tried setting for other dietary factors like these, as well as effectively taking into account the ratio between vegetable and animal fats and whether potato eaters drink more soda or maybe less of other vegetables. However, there seemed to be a link between potatoes and diabetes.
Well, it was just a study. As of 2015, so have Harvard researchers looked to other groups, including the Health Professionals Follow-up Study to complement the Women’s Nurses Study, and they continued to find a risk of diabetes associated with baked, boiled, or baked potatoes, although French fries actually seemed to be about five times worse. The authors concluded that potatoes are considered a healthy vegetable in dietary guidelines, but current evidence “casts serious doubt on this classification.” Walter Willett, then head of Harvard’s nutrition department, went a step further, suggests the potatoes should be covered in sugar there, as you can see below and at 2:18 in my video Do potatoes increase the risk of diabetes?.
A meta-analysis of potato consumption and risk of type 2 diabetes was published in 2018 pooled all six prospective studies conducted to date, and researchers found a nearly 20% increased risk of diabetes for each serving of potato per day, concluding that “(l)uch consumption of potatoes… related with an increased risk of diabetes.” But, again, the vast majority of potatoes consumed were fried, and we know that deep-fried foods contain all kinds of bad stuff, like advanced glycation end products. The researchers weren’t able to compare french fries and fried potatoes. Even three servings of potatoes a week was associated with about a 20% higher risk of type 2 diabetes, while there was only a small risk with potatoes overall, including mashed potatoes.
The world’s largest manufacturer of frozen French fries took with this conclusion. Claiming for one in three potatoes eaten on planet earth worth billions of dollars, the company has the money to fund reviews to cast doubt on the science. A review said The scientific literature should be read with caution, as the effects of potatoes on disease risk factors may depend on the foods they are classified as part of the diet. In fact, they have a real point. Observational studies can never prove cause and effect, and it may be that potato consumption—even the consumption of baked potatoes—may just be a symptom of an unhealthy diet. Until researchers try to adjust for these other factors, as the Journal of the American Potato Association is fast to remind we cannot separate the effects of potatoes and potatoes from the general effects of the standard American diet.
Is there a country where the consumption of potatoes is associated with a healthy diet? If potato consumption is still there associated with diabetes, then this would be a concern. Enter the seventh study, but this time from Iran, where most of the potato is consumed is from boiled potatoes. In fact, those who ate potatoes had the healthiest diets and ate the most plant-based foods—fruits, vegetables, legumes, and whole grains. And although the researchers tried to understand these other dietary factors, those who ate boiled potatoes were only half as likely to develop diabetes. This supports the idea that potatoes alone are difficult to isolate completely. In conclusion, this systematic review concludedis that we don’t really have “convincing evidence” that potato consumption in general is linked to type 2 diabetes, but we should keep potatoes anyway.
Dr.’s comment
This is the first of a five-part series on potatoes. Stay tuned:
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