New Harvard Study: Eating This Dessert May Lower Diabetes Risk by 21%
It’s the time of year when the opportunities abound to consume sugar and refined carbohydrates, like breads, cookies, and pretty-packaged boxes of candy. But with 40 million Americans managing diabetes—and another near-100 million at pre-diabetic borderline values without even knowing it—this might be the year when you finally feel motivated to resist those nasty sugars that hack away at your body’s ability to produce its own insulin.
The good news? One adored sweet may serve as a substitute that helps minimize diabetes risk. Just in time for the holidays, on December 4, 2024 researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan Medical School published a study in the prestigious British Medical Journal. Their findings suggest that savoring one type of chocolate may help cut your diabetes risk by more than one-fifth.
To conduct their study, the team of doctors specializing in metabolic science and public health collected data from 18,862 people with “incident Type 2 diabetes.” This means doctors had assessed these individuals’ blood glucose levels and recorded two consecutive results that indicated type 2 diabetes.
The researchers then analyzed the effects, comparing the blood sugar levels of:
- dark chocolate eaters
- milk chocolate eaters
- overall chocolate eaters
- never-chocolate eaters
Regular chocolate eaters reported consuming five or more servings of chocolate per week.
After comparing health metrics across these groups, the research team reports: “Increased consumption of dark, but not milk, chocolate was associated with lower risk of [type 2 diabetes].” In fact, they say, “Participants who consumed 5 or more servings per week of dark chocolate showed a significant 21% lower risk.” For each serving of dark chocolate consumed per week, patients saw a risk reduction of 3%.
