Eating Home-Prepared Meals Reduces Risk of Type 2 Diabetes

According to a new study, home-cooked meals are associated with a slightly decreased risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

This research was presented by Geng Zong, PhD, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, at the annual conference of the American Heart Association in Orlando.

People who ate between 11-14 lunches or dinners prepared at home per week (breakfast could not be accounted for in this study) faced a lower risk of diabetes compared with those who ate six or fewer homemade meals per week.

Zong and colleagues also found that at eight years follow-up, people who ate more home-prepared meals had lower weight gain and decreased risk of obesity.

According to Zong, this last aspect may very well explain the lower diabetes risk.

"We found that those with more meals prepared at home have a slightly lower sugar sweetened beverage intake," he said in a press release. "This could be another bridge that links homemade meals and diabetes risk."

Data derived from 58,000 women in the Nurses' Health Study and 41,000 men in the Health Professional Follow-up Study.

"The trend for eating commercially prepared meals in restaurants or as take-out in the United States has increased significantly over the last 50 years," he added. "At the same time, type 2 diabetes rates have also increased."

Source: AHA 2015