A new survey shows the vast majority of consumers living with type 2 diabetes would rather change their diets—including trying a vegetarian diet—than use medicines. According to a nationally representative survey of 1,022 adults conducted in mid-January by Opinion Research Corporation, almost 70% of Americans said they would prefer to try a dietary approach, while 21% preferred treating type 2  diabetes with medicines.
 
The survey, commissioned by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM), reinforces results from PCRM’s clinical research on diabetes, which has consistently found that people with type 2 diabetes adapt well to low-fat vegetarian diets and gain important health benefits.
 
In Dr. Neal Barnard’s Program for Reversing Diabetes, a new book published in January, PCRM president Neal Barnard, M.D., outlines a dietary approach to type 2 diabetes based on scientific research showing that a low-fat vegan diet can lower high blood sugar levels three times more effectively than oral medications. In the past, many clinicians have felt that patients lack the willpower to make diet changes and would rather “pop a pill.” The new results show just the opposite.
 
“A low-fat vegetarian diet offers a powerful way to control and even reverse diabetes,” said Dr. Barnard. “The idea that Americans would rather take pills than make diet changes is a myth. Americans clearly favor tackling serious type 2 diabetes with diet changes, including vegetarian diets.” The PCRM survey included 515 women and 507 men, 18 years and older, living in the continental United States.
 
Other key survey findings:
 
* Women are even more likely than men to prefer food changes over pills. Women preferred diet by 73% versus 17% for medicines. For men, the split was 65% versus 26%.
 
* People with more education and higher incomes were especially likely to favor a diet approach.
 
* Americans aged 45 to 64 were more enthusiastic about diet changes, compared with older Americans; 76% of the middle-aged respondents preferred diet changes. Among those aged 65 and above, the figure dropped slightly, to 59%. The most pill-happy generation was the 18- to 24-year-olds. But even in this group, only 30% favored using medicines, while 63% favored diet changes.
 
* People living in Western states were especially likely to prefer diet changes: 73% versus only 17% for drugs.