Diabetes: when scientific communication gets it wrong

Quotidianosanità.it has published an article with an ambiguous headline, one that highlights the difficult relationship between science and scientific communication.
Nutricity, which works in directly applied research as well as in the difficult field of scientific communication and information (clinical, nutritional and, more broadly, related to all the legal, political and economic issues tied to the world of food and nutrition), felt it appropriate to pause and share a reflection on the topic raised in the article.

We reproduce here an excerpt from the article, which we invite you to read by following the link:

Diabetes. Protecting yourself with a mix of the Mediterranean diet and a low-carbohydrate diet
The Mediterranean diet combined with diets featuring low-glycemic-load carbohydrates protects against type 2 diabetes. The proof comes from a study conducted by the 'Mario Negri' Institute on 22,295 people followed for 11 years.
30 SEPT - The Mediterranean diet and low-carbohydrate diets can protect against type 2 diabetes. This is demonstrated by a study conducted by researchers in the Epidemiology department of the IRCCS - Mario Negri Institute for Pharmacological Research, directed by Carlo La Vecchia, and published in Diabetologia, the scientific journal of the European Association for The Study of Diabetes (EASD).
The authors analysed data from 22,295 participants in the Greek cohort of the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study, still ongoing, directed by Antonia Trichopoulou. After being actively followed for 11 years, 2,330 cases of type 2 diabetes had occurred. Information on food consumption, collected via questionnaire, allowed the researchers to assign each subject a score from 0 to 10 estimating adherence to the Mediterranean diet (MD) and a score measuring the available carbohydrates in the diet in terms of glycemic load (GL).
Individuals with a Mediterranean diet score above 6 had a 12% lower risk of diabetes than those with a score below 4, and those in the highest GL level had a 21% higher risk than those in the lowest level. Moreover, a diet combining adherence to the MD with a low GL reduced the risk of diabetes by 20%. read more

NUTRICITY'S TAKE

This article, beyond its very interesting scientific content on the effectiveness of the Mediterranean diet in preventing type 2 diabetes mellitus, shows how inappropriate communication can distort scientific data and can lead people to make behavioural mistakes in their diet.
The study presented in the article in fact assesses adherence to the Mediterranean diet and to the "glycemic load" (Glycemic Load: GL).

As is now well known, the glycemic load is given by the quantity of available carbohydrates multiplied by the glycemic index of each food consumed. Over the course of the day there are therefore different glycemic loads depending on the meals and foods consumed.
Indeed, even a small amount of high-glycemic-index carbohydrates is enough to produce a glycemic load higher than that of larger quantities of low-glycemic-index carbohydrates.
In other words, a low glycemic load does not sic et simpliciter mean a low carbohydrate content.
Therefore, low-glycemic-load diets do not mean low-carbohydrate diets.

On the other hand, the Mediterranean diet, as represented in its most effective form (as demonstrated by the Seven Country Study), namely the Cretan diet, is not low in carbohydrates but simply richer in monounsaturated fats derived from olive oil. In the article reporting the results of the study carried out at the Mario Negri institute, however, the headline and the first part of the article seem to tell the reader that a low-carbohydrate diet protects against the onset of type 2 diabetes.
Based on what has been set out above, this is not only inaccurate, but may lead the careless reader to adopt incorrect eating behaviours, perhaps preferring high-protein or high-fat diets (in our case certainly not linked to olive oil but most likely to the increase in fats that often accompany proteins in foods), which are, moreover, very fashionable nowadays, ignoring the real message of the study and increasing the risk of conditions associated with diabetes, such as cardiovascular disease.

The Nutricity scientific committee