Q&A: Diet & Diabetes.

smiling doctor holding a red heart Q:
How does a healthy eating plan for someone with type 2 diabetes differ from what everyone else should be eating?

A: It doesn’t. The nutrition recommendations from the American Diabetes Association echo the healthy eating guidelines for the general public. Everyone should be eating more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables and less saturated and trans fat. Remember that the type of fat matters to your heart and blood vessels. We’ve moved away from recommending a strict low-fat diet and shifted toward an eating plan that allows for a moderate amount of fat, provided you choose healthier fats, like monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats.

If you have diabetes and are trying to lose weight, don’t take the drastic diet approach, like a low-carb diet. It might help you lose weight in the short-term, but there’s not good evidence that it will help you keep it off. Here’s my point: You’re going to have diabetes for the rest of your life. You need to be thinking about minor doable changes in your eating habits that you can really maintain. Even small steps towards healthier eating result in big rewards, like lower blood glucose and improved blood pressure and lipids.

You also don’t need a special diet to tell you how to eat healthy. Most people — especially people reading WebMD — already know. The big challenge is actually doing it day after day, year after year.