ArticleDiabetes care2021
Changes in Plant-Based Diet Indices and Subsequent Risk of Type 2 Diabetes in Women and Men: Three U.S. Prospective Cohorts.
Article in Diabetes care, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 64 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
64 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 91 citations in OpenAlex.
- Plant-Based Diets and Cognitive Outcomes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2025Pooled it
- Vegetarian and Vegan Dietary Patterns to Treat Adult Type 2 Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Advances in nutrition (Bethesda, Md.) · 2024Pooled it
- A legume-enriched diet improves metabolic health in prediabetes mediated through gut microbiome: a randomized controlled trial.Nature communications · 2025Trial
- Does diet quality matter? A secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial.European journal of clinical nutrition · 2024Trial
- Trial
- Association of Adherence to Various Dietary Patterns With Mortality Among Survivors of Myocardial Infarction: A Prospective Cohort Study.Circulation · 2026Article
- Sustainable Plant-Based Diets in Children and Adolescents: Current Evidence on Metabolic Syndrome and Cardiometabolic Health.Current nutrition reports · 2026Review
- Plant-Based Nutrition and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: Prevention, Risk, Metabolic Health and the Role of Legumes, Dietary Fiber, and Red Meat.Nutrients · 2026Review
- Associations between dietary patterns and cardiovascular, kidney and metabolic risk markers in the Cooperative Health Research in South Tyrol study.European journal of nutrition · 2026Article
- Contribution of Vicine, Convicine, and New Derivatives to the Bitter Off-Taste of Fava Bean Proteins.Journal of agricultural and food chemistry · 2026Article
- A narrative review of dietary patterns in cardiovascular-kidney-metabolic syndrome.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Review
- A path to sustainable and healthy diets: modeling ovo-lacto-vegetarian food-based dietary guidelines.Frontiers in nutrition · 2026Article
- Not All Plants Are Equal: Diet Quality and Inflammation in Vegans and Vegetarians in Urban Poland.Nutrients · 2025Article
- Plant-based diet, inflammation biomarkers and body composition among women with breast cancer: the Pathways Study.The British journal of nutrition · 2025Article
- Combined associations of physical activity, diet quality and their trajectories with incidence of diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in the EPIC-Norfolk Study.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Plant-based diets and the risk of lung cancer: a large prospective cohort study.European journal of nutrition · 2025Observational
- Plant-based diet and survival among patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 2025Article
- Plant-based dietary index on the Mediterranean and a vegan diet: a secondary analysis of a randomized, cross-over trial.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
- Plant-based dietary index and body weight in people with type 1 diabetes: a secondary analysis of a randomized clinical trial.Frontiers in nutrition · 2025Article
4 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
9 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveWe evaluated the associations between changes in plant-based diets and subsequent risk of type 2 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND
methodsWe prospectively followed 76,530 women in the Nurses' Health Study (NHS) (1986-2012), 81,569 women in NHS II (1991-2017), and 34,468 men in the Health Professionals Follow-up Study (1986-2016). Adherence to plant-based diets was assessed every 4 years with the overall plant-based diet index (PDI), healthful PDI (hPDI), and unhealthful PDI (uPDI). We used multivariable Cox proportional hazards models to estimate hazard ratios (HRs). We pooled results of the three cohorts using meta-analysis.
resultsWe documented 12,627 cases of type 2 diabetes during 2,955,350 person-years of follow-up. After adjustment for initial BMI and initial and 4-year changes in alcohol intake, smoking, physical activity, and other factors, compared with participants whose indices remained relatively stable (±3%), participants with the largest decrease (>10%) in PDI and hPDI over 4 years had a 12-23% higher diabetes risk in the subsequent 4 years (pooled HR, PDI 1.12 [95% CI 1.05, 1.20], hPDI 1.23 [1.16, 1.31]). Each 10% increment in PDI and hPDI over 4 years was associated with a 7-9% lower risk (PDI 0.93 [0.91, 0.95], hPDI 0.91 [0.87, 0.95]). Changes in uPDI were not associated with diabetes risk. Weight changes accounted for 6.0-35.6% of the associations between changes in PDI and hPDI and diabetes risk.
conclusionsImproving adherence to overall and healthful plant-based diets was associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes, whereas decreased adherence to such diets was associated with a higher risk.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.