Health Claims

For overweight people with type 2 diabetes, eating fewer carbs and more protein for 6 weeks makes it more likely their blood sugar will dip low without them feeling it—82% had low readings compared to 70% on a normal diet—but no one passed out or had a medical emergency.

Quantitative

If you're overweight and have type 2 diabetes, cutting carbs and eating more protein for 6 weeks can lower your blood fats (triglycerides) 18% more than the usual diabetes diet—even if you lose the same amount of weight—meaning your body handles fats better.

Causal

If you're overweight and have type 2 diabetes, cutting back on carbs and eating more protein for 6 weeks can clear more fat from your liver than just eating a normal diabetes diet—even if you lose the same amount of weight. It’s like your liver gets a special boost from fewer carbs.

Causal

If you're overweight and have type 2 diabetes, eating fewer carbs and more protein for 6 weeks can slightly lower your blood sugar better than the usual diabetes diet—even if you lose the same amount of weight—because your blood sugar stays more stable throughout the day.

Causal

When kids who are overweight and at risk for heart problems cut down on sugar like fructose (found in soda and candy), their blood levels of a certain fat molecule go down—and their bad cholesterol and triglycerides improve too. This might mean that fat molecules in the blood help control cholesterol levels.

Correlational

When kids who are overweight and at risk for heart and liver problems cut out sugary foods with fructose—without eating fewer total calories—their liver fat and harmful fat-making processes go down, and so do certain toxic fat molecules, hinting that all of this is happening because of the same liver problem.

Mechanistic

When kids with weight problems and metabolic risks cut down on fructose (a sugar found in soda and sweets), their blood levels of certain fat molecules called ceramides go down—and at the same time, their body’s ability to use insulin gets better. This makes scientists think those fat molecules might be a clue to how well insulin is working.

Correlational

When kids with weight and metabolic problems cut out sugary foods like soda and candy, their liver makes less fat and also produces fewer weird fat molecules called deoxyceramides — and these two changes seem to happen together, suggesting they’re linked by the same sugar-driven process.

Mechanistic

When kids who are overweight and at risk for heart and blood sugar problems cut back on sugary foods (like soda and candy) for just nine days, their blood shows lower levels of certain harmful fats, and their bodies start using insulin better—like a reset button for their metabolism.

Correlational

People who are obese and have type 2 diabetes who carry a specific gene change (ApoB deletion) tend to have more body inflammation, less ability to fight off cell damage, and worse cholesterol levels—all together making their health worse than expected.

Correlational

If you have type 2 diabetes and are overweight, having a certain gene variant (ApoB deletion) might raise your 'bad' cholesterol and worsen your cholesterol balance—but if you're not overweight, this gene doesn't seem to affect your cholesterol at all.

Correlational

If you're overweight and have type 2 diabetes, and you have a specific gene variation called ApoB deletion, your body might have less of a natural antioxidant shield—making it harder to fight off cell damage—compared to others with the same gene who aren't overweight.

Correlational

If you're overweight and have type 2 diabetes, having a specific genetic variation called the ApoB deletion allele might mean your body is under more oxidative stress—like your fats are getting damaged more easily—than if you had the same gene but weren't overweight.

Correlational

People who are obese and have type 2 diabetes and carry a specific version of the ApoB gene tend to have more body inflammation, less ability to fight off cell damage, and worse cholesterol levels than those without this gene version.

Correlational

Even if you eat a lot of fructose—like from fruit, soda, or sweets—your body’s ability to use insulin properly or the amount of fat in your liver doesn’t seem to change just because of that fructose, as long as you’re eating the same total calories and living a similar lifestyle.

Correlational

Even if you drink fruit juice with lots of fructose, it doesn’t seem to make your body less sensitive to insulin or worsen fatty liver—once you account for how much you eat overall and how active you are.

Correlational

If you’ve just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, drinking sugary sodas might make your liver less responsive to insulin—but if you’re active and move around more, that bad effect isn’t as strong.

Correlational

If you’ve just been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and you eat twice as much fruit as before, you might be 13% less likely to get a fatty liver—even if you’re eating the same total amount of calories.

Correlational

If you have recently been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and you double how much sugary soda you drink, your body becomes about 2.6% less able to use insulin properly and you’re about 16–17% more likely to get fat in your liver—even if you’re not eating more calories overall.

Correlational

When immune cells release strong oxidizing chemicals during inflammation, lycopene gets used up trying to neutralize them, acting like a shield that takes the hit instead of other molecules.

Mechanistic

Men who eat more lycopene—found in tomatoes and other red fruits—tend to have a lower chance of having a stroke caused by a blocked blood vessel in the brain.

Correlational

Lycopene, a red pigment found in tomatoes, might help stop immune cells from turning into fatty 'foam cells' that clog arteries—by slowing down how much cholesterol the cells make and reducing the receptors that suck up bad fats.

Mechanistic

Taking tomato extract or eating a lot of tomato sauce for a few weeks can lower the amount of damaged cholesterol in the blood, which is linked to heart disease.

Quantitative

Lycopene, the red pigment in tomatoes, is better than other similar plant compounds at neutralizing harmful molecules called singlet oxygen and peroxyl radicals in test tubes — making it the top carotenoid antioxidant in lab settings.

Quantitative