Fruits are often described as too sweet and too high in sugar. Many people therefore avoid fruit as much as possible. Diabetics are also repeatedly warned about fruits. However, studies have shown that the risk of developing diabetes is lower if you like to eat fruit. And even with existing diabetes, fruits have an extremely positive effect. It has been shown that diabetics who like to eat fruit are less likely to struggle with the typical diabetes complications and diabetes-related diseases.
Fruits reduce the risk of diabetes
With type 2 diabetes, those affected are often unsure what they can and cannot eat. Fruits seem to be particularly critical. Fruits are known to contain sugar – and are therefore avoided by many people with diabetes.
Fruits are basically very healthy foods that help prevent and treat many diseases – including diabetes. They are rich in vitamins, antioxidants, and soluble and insoluble fiber. In addition, they taste good, so that this type of health prevention is easy to implement.
Fruits help you lose weight and improve high blood pressure
For example, a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can significantly reduce the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, obesity and some forms of cancer. Diabetics in particular are often affected by these problems. They are often overweight and belong to hypertension patients, so a diet rich in fruits and vegetables can help them to get these complaints under control more easily.
If an overweight diabetic then loses weight, his diabetes usually also improves. In addition, if the condition of his cardiovascular system improves, then of course his blood sugar level is regulated much more easily.
Fruits have a positive effect on the intestines
Fruits and their fiber also have a beneficial effect on the intestines and digestion. However, the healthier the gut and the intestinal flora, the higher the chances of never getting diabetes or being able to keep your blood sugar level under control much more easily. Because we know that a healthy intestinal flora is the prerequisite for good general health and can therefore protect against diseases of all kinds.
Fruits and their sugar content
But what about the sugar, which is undoubtedly abundant in fruits? After all, it is known that sugar causes blood sugar levels to rise.
In order to be able to assess the influence of a food on the blood sugar level, there are the values of the so-called glycemic load. As a guideline, the glycemic load of pure glucose (glucose) is 100.
Glycemic load of fruits and other foods
Below is a small selection of different foods and their respective glycemic load. The higher the values, the more the respective foods cause the blood sugar level to rise. Values up to 10 are considered low, values above 20 are high:
Sugars
| Food | Glycemic Load (GL) |
|---|---|
| Glucose (glucose) | 100 |
| Sucrose (table sugar) | 70 |
| Lactose (lactose) | 40 |
| Fructose (fructose) | 20 |
Bread, noodles and rice
| Food | Glycemic Load (GL) |
|---|---|
| White Bread | 38.8 |
| Whole Wheat Bread | 18 |
| White Rice | 55 |
| Brown Rice | 39 |
| White Pasta | 40 |
| Whole Wheat Pasta al dente | 26 |
| Oatmeal | 23.5 |
Sweet
| Food | Glycemic Load (GL) |
|---|---|
| Jam (normal with sugar) | 42 |
| Jam unsweetened | 4.5 |
| Honey | 49 |
| Pastries | 33 |
| Chocolate Bar (Regular Milk Chocolate) | 35 |
| Chocolate 70 percent cocoa content | 6.9 |
Potatoes, vegetables and fruits
| Food | Glycemic Load (GL) |
|---|---|
| Potatoes (jacket potatoes, mashed potatoes) | 10 |
| Leafy greens and salads | Mostly under 1 |
| Berries | 1.3-2 |
| Apricot fresh | 2.6 |
| Dried apricot | 19.2 |
| Canned apricot (w/ sugar) | 42.6 |
| Orange | 3.5 |
| Apple | 4 |
| Orange juice (unsweetened) | 5 |
| Watermelon | 4.5 |
| Kiwi | 5.5 |
| Mango | 6.5 |
| Grapes | 7.2 |
| Banana | 12 |
Fruits affect blood sugar levels less than whole-wheat bread
So you can see that fruits have a very low glycemic load, and that even bananas, which are often discouraged for diabetics, have significantly lower GL values than, for example, the whole grain varieties of bread, pasta and rice.
Not even fruit juices – if unsweetened and ideally freshly squeezed – have conspicuously high GL values. The GL values of juices compared to fresh fruit increase by a maximum of 2 points.
The table above also shows you which foods from the carbohydrate range should be avoided in diabetes, namely sweets, as well as pasta and baked goods made from white flour. Fruits, however, can be eaten without any problems – taking into account, of course, the desired total amount of calories and carbohydrates.
Study: High Fruit Consumption – Rare Diabetes
In April 2017, researchers from the University of Oxford presented a study on fruit consumption and diabetes in the journal PLOS Medicine ( 1 ) ( 2 ) . In their introduction, they wrote:
The fact that fruits contain sugar has recently led to the assumption that fruits could increase the risk of diabetes and also of diabetes-related vascular diseases.
To test this allegation, Dr. Huaidong Du and colleagues analyzed nearly 500,000 pieces of personal data documented over a period of 7 years in the China Kadoorie Biobank – a Chinese study of chronic diseases.
The scientists then looked at how the study participants ate, how many people developed diabetes, how many of them developed vascular diseases and how many of the diabetics died. It turned out that those people who ate a lot of fresh fruit were less likely to develop diabetes than other study participants.
In the group of diabetics who were already ill, the researchers discovered that those who ate little fresh fruit had an increased risk of death. Diabetics who ate a lot of fruit, on the other hand, had a lower risk of developing the typical diabetes complications of the blood vessels.
Fruits are not a cause of diabetes
Of course, since this was a purely observational study, it is not possible to say whether other dietary habits could not also be responsible for this result. After all, if you like fruit, you might also like to eat vegetables. And individuals who eat few fruits may eat more meat — and processed meat products have been shown to increase the risk of diabetes, while high vegetable and fiber consumption may lower the risk of diabetes.
However, the presented study provides an important clue: fruits are not the cause of diabetes and diabetes-related diseases. Fruits also do not increase the risk of these symptoms and can therefore be eaten with a clear conscience even if you have diabetes.
Fruit prevents insulin levels that are too high
The above results are also confirmed by a study from June 2021 ( 6 ). In this study, 7,675 participants showed that people who ate two servings of fruit a day had a 36 percent reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the following 5 years (compared to those who ate less than half a serving of fruit per day). However, the reduced risk could only be seen in fresh fruit, not in fruit juices (bought, i.e. processed or heated)!
The researchers involved were able to show that people who ate plenty of fruit had better insulin levels, which means that these people needed less insulin to maintain balanced blood sugar levels. Chronically elevated insulin levels, on the other hand, can damage blood vessels and promote not only diabetes, but also high blood pressure, obesity and heart disease, according to study author Dr. Nicola Bondonno, a scientist at the Department of Nutritional Sciences at Edith Cowan University in Perth, Australia.
Cancer and fructose from fruits
A few weeks before the publication of the Chinese study, another study on a similar topic had already appeared. Based on data from 2 million people, it was found that those people who had eaten the most fruits and vegetables were much better protected against the usual causes of death (heart attack, stroke, cancer).
So even though fruits contain fructose (fructose), a type of sugar that is associated with promoting cancer, high fruit consumption does not lead to cancer, but rather protects against it. Study results from studies with an isolated single substance (in this case fructose) cannot therefore be transferred to fresh and natural foods just because they also contain this substance. This is because fresh and natural foods usually have a completely different effect in their entirety and with all their vital substances.
Nor do you have to be afraid of fatty liver if you eat plenty of fruit. It is said that fructose contributes to the development of non-alcoholic fatty liver. However, according to a 2014 study, this is only true if a person consumes too many calories overall (3).
It is better to drink fruit juices only rarely
Despite low GL, fruit juices should not be drunk frequently – neither by diabetics nor by healthy people. Fruit juices consume a relatively large number of carbohydrates and calories very quickly. If you wanted to eat the same amount of fruit, you would often not be able to do it at all.
Depending on the juice content of the fruit, for example, you need half a kilogram of apples to make a glass of apple juice (250 ml). The juice is drunk in one minute and provides 125 kcal and 28 g of carbohydrates. It contains hardly any fiber.
Just eating a single apple takes much longer – ideally a quarter of an hour. Because you should chew the fruit extensively in any case. On the other hand, very few people will eat half a kilogram of apples at once.
A large apple (130 g) now provides 85 kcal and 19 g of carbohydrates. So it makes more sense to eat an apple at your leisure instead of pouring down a glass of apple juice – especially since the apple is also much more satisfying due to the fiber and slow eating.
Therefore, if you ever want to drink a juice, drink a small glass (100 to 150 ml) and consider it as a snack, not as a thirst quencher. The ideal drink is and remains water.
Fruits for diabetes – raw or cooked
Raw vegetables are known to be better at lowering high blood pressure than cooked vegetables ( 4 ). Similarly, a study conducted between 1994 and 2003 found that raw vegetables can protect against cancer better than cooked vegetables ( 5 ).
With regard to fruits and diabetes, there is no corresponding study yet, but it can be assumed that raw foods are also the better choice here. This is because raw fruits are in full possession of all their vital substances, while cooked fruits contain a reduced amount of vital substances. Fruits are also very important sources of vitamin C – and vitamin C in particular is extremely sensitive to heat.
Canned fruits are not only cooked and often sugared, but usually also peeled. However, the peels of the fruits in particular are important sources of antioxidants and fiber, so canned fruits should not be consumed under any circumstances, even if you don’t have diabetes.
