High dietary cholesterol helps to prevent diabetes

Published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, doi:10.3945/ajcn.2009.28441 Vol. 91, No. 6, 1627-1633, June 2010

Predicted 25-hydroxyvitamin D score and incident type 2 diabetes in the Framingham Offspring Study 1,2,3,4
Enju Liu, James B Meigs, Anastassios G Pittas, Christina D Economos, Nicola M McKeown, Sarah L Booth and Paul F Jacques
1 From the Jean Mayer US Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University Boston MA (EL NMM SLBPFJ); the General Medicine DivisionDepartment of Medicine Massachusetts General HospitalHarvard Medical School Boston MA (JBM); the Division of Endocrinology DiabetesMetabolism Tufts Medical Center Boston MA (AGP);the Friedman School of Nutrition SciencePolicy Tufts University Boston MA (CDE NMM SLBPFJ).
2 None of the sponsors had any role in the design of the study; the design was exclusively the work of the authors.
3 Supported in part by the US Department of Agriculture, under agreement no. 58-1950-7-707, National Institute of Aging (AG14759), and the Framingham Heart Study of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health (contract no. N01-HC-25195); and by an American Diabetes Association Career Development Award (JBM), NIDDK K24 DK080140 (JBM), R01DK076092 and R21DK078867 (AGP), and the Beverage Institute for Health and Wellness (CDE).
4 Address correspondence to PF Jacques, Epidemiology Program, Jean Mayer US Department of Agriculture Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, 711 Washington Street, Boston, MA 02111. E-mail: paul.jacques@tufts.edu.

This study can be accessed at: http://www.ajcn.org/cgi/content/abstract/91/6/1627
 
The objective of the study was to examine the relationship between vitamin D status and incidence of type 2 diabetes. In the study the vitamin D levels of 3,066 men and women were analysed for 7 years.

The study found that those with the highest vitamin D levels had a 40% decreased risk of diabetes compared to those with the lowest vitamin D.
 
Vitamin D can be obtained from sunshine and foods. Interestingly, foods that provide this vitamin - all of which are animal foods, such as butter,eggs, liver, organ meats and seafood - tend to be high in cholesterol. In fact one of cholesterol's many functions in the body is to act as a precursor to vitamin D.

So, no cholesterol and no animal foods = low vitamin D. Therefore low vitamin D = higher rates of diabetes.

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