Overview

• The study pooled data from three long-running US cohorts of health professionals, tracking potato intake and diabetes outcomes in 205,107 adults over nearly 40 years
• French fry consumption stood out as the primary driver of increased diabetes risk, with roughly a 20% higher incidence per three servings consumed weekly
• Other potato preparations—including baked, boiled and mashed—showed no significant link to type 2 diabetes after adjusting for lifestyle and dietary factors
• Replacing three weekly servings of fries or total potatoes with whole grains was associated with reduced diabetes risk—about 19% for fries and 8% for total potatoes
• Authors stress that half of the fries–diabetes association was mediated by body mass index and that the observational design and predominantly White cohorts limit causal interpretation and generalizability