EAT-Lancet diet linked to lower type 2 diabetes risk
People in the highest versus lowest quarters of two diet scores had lower relative diabetes risk, with hazard ratios of 0.83 and 0.85.
Paper by Yanxia Cui, Haijie Gao, Huijia Zhang et al.
Limit: Diet assessment allowed one 24-hour recall, which can misrepresent usual eating patterns
Edited by Boris Djordjevic · AgingResearch.News
Among 155,413 UK Biobank participants without type 2 diabetes at enrollment, an observational cohort study linked closer adherence to the EAT-Lancet diet with lower risk of developing the disease. Participants completed at least one survey recalling what they ate over 24 hours and had biological aging measures available.
Researchers used two scores to assess diet adherence and two measures to estimate biological aging. Higher diet scores were associated with less accelerated biological aging and lower diabetes risk. The highest versus lowest quarters of the Knuppel and Stubbendorff diet scores had hazard ratios of 0.83 and 0.85, respectively, indicating lower relative diabetes risk. Exploratory analyses suggested that biological aging measures statistically accounted for approximately 33%–44% of the diet–diabetes association.
Why it matters
The authors supported diabetes prevention strategies that promote healthy dietary patterns and address accelerated biological aging.
Caveats
The observational design could not establish that the diet reduced diabetes risk or that slower biological aging explained the link. The findings concern people initially without type 2 diabetes; the abstract does not report their ages or follow-up duration.
Where the evidence stands
Eat-lancet diet
- 14 independent labs in 6 countries
- 1 finding against
- Funders: National Natural Science Foundation of China and others
- 7 of 41 findings with company ties
The paper
Yanxia Cui, Haijie Gao, Huijia Zhang et al.
Frontiers in Nutrition, Oct 30, 2026, CC BY, Accepted, not yet published
