A new study shares some sympathy for a much-maligned vegetable: the potato.
It found that the way the potato is prepared — including what people add to it — is what's associated with Type 2 diabetes, rather than the "humble" vegetable itself.
The study was published in Diabetes Care, a peer-reviewed journal by the American Diabetes Association for health care providers.
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Previous research had shown an association between diabetes and total potato intake.
A team of Australian researchers, led by Dr. Nicola Bondonno from Edith Cowan University’s Nutrition and Health Innovation Research Institute, explored the relationship of vegetable intake and the incidence of Type 2 diabetes.
The researchers also examined the relationship of potato consumption and the incidence of Type 2 diabetes.
Over 54,000 participants, ages 50-64, were recruited from the Danish Diet, Cancer and Health cohort, which examined the relationship between dietary components and the incidence of cancer and other chronic diseases.
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The participants filled out a 192-item "food frequency questionnaire" at the start of the study.
Those who took part noted how often they ate a particular food for the past 12 months, said co-author Pratik Pokharel, a PhD candidate who worked on the analysis for the paper.
"The intake of foods and nutrients were then estimated using standard recipes and the software FoodCalc," Pokharel told Fox News Digital.
Eating more vegetables may equal a lower risk of diabetes
The researchers found that those with the highest total vegetable intake had a 21% lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes — compared to the group with the lowest intake of vegetables, after adjusting for lifestyle and demographic confounding variables.
They also found that participants with the highest potato consumption had a 9% higher risk of Type 2 diabetes, compared to the group who ate the lowest daily amount.
Boiled potatoes are key
"When we separated boiled potatoes from mashed potatoes, fries or crisps, boiled potatoes were no longer associated with a higher risk of diabetes. They had a null effect," Pokharel said in a press release.