Research

Mixed

High intake of green leafy and dark yellow vegetables reduces the risk of type 2 diabetes in overweight women (BMI >25), whereas total fruit and vegetable intake shows no significant inverse association after adjusting for known risk factors.

If you are overweight, prioritize eating large amounts of green leafy vegetables (spinach, kale, lettuce) and dark yellow vegetables (carrots, squash, sweet potatoes) daily. Simply increasing total fruit and vegetable intake without focusing on these specific types may not lower your diabetes risk, especially if your weight remains high. Avoid relying on starchy vegetables like potatoes for this benefit.

ModerateQualifiesMEDIUM confidence
Among women with BMI >25 kg/m2, higher intake of green leafy or dark yellow vegetables was significantly associated with reduced risk of type 2 diabetes... Overall, we found no inverse association between total intake of fruits and vegetables and risk of incident type 2 diabetes after adjustment for known risk factors
Simin Liu et al. · Diabetes Care · 2004

Why this rating

Prospective cohort study with large sample size (39,876 women) and long follow-up (8.8 years), but relies on self-reported diet and diabetes diagnosis, and findings are not statistically significant after full BMI adjustment in the primary analysis.

Source

A Prospective Study of Fruit and Vegetable Intake and the Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women

Simin Liu et al. · Diabetes Care · 2004

DOI 10.2337/diacare.27.12.2993

cohort · n=38018Cited 204×
Read the paper
DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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