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Mangoes Can’t Cure Diabetes
The latest in a string of research funded by Big Food
There’s a hilarious trope in the scientific world. Big agricultural companies have realized that people like to buy their products if they have a health halo. The best way to make your produce seem healthy — whether it be honey, blueberries, walnuts, or even wasabi — is to fund a few scientific studies. If the studies are negative, no problem! Just report them as if they were positive, because the chances that anyone will ever check are…very low.
The newest fun addition to this trope is the mango. Yes, I can finally say the words “Big Mango” unironically. There has been a swathe of media attention on the delicious tropical fruit recently, with claims that it can cure or perhaps prevent diabetes. In reality, these headlines are based on some very questionable science that was funded by the mango growing industry.
Hilarious stuff. Sometimes the truth really is better than fiction.
The Science
The new study that has everyone so worked up about mangoes was a small clinical trial. The authors randomized 48 overweight people to either drink frozen mango or sugar-sweetened Italian ice smoothies for a month, then compared the groups. The primary outcomes of the study were a wide range of inflammatory markers and some tests of the gut microbiome, and there were secondary outcomes that looked at insulin sensitivity, blood sugars, and some other aspects of health.
Given the breathless headlines, you’d assume that the authors found some amazing results. Maybe mangoes drastically cut blood glucose. Perhaps they slashed inflammation. Maybe even caused weight loss, or improved the gut microbiome.
Except, none of this happened. The people who ate mangoes had slightly HIGHER blood glucose than those in the control group. They also had higher cholesterol and triglycerides. Despite testing a wide range of inflammatory markers, there was no sign of any difference between the two groups on any of these at the end of the trial. I couldn’t find any reports in this paper about the…
