The connection between diet and health has long stood as a fundamental concept in diabetes prevention and management. A group of speakers will expand on this by presenting new insights into improved diabetes care through food access, dietary habits, and recognition of “beloved” foods.

The symposium, Consensus or Controversy? Hot Topics in Nutrition 2025, will be held on Saturday, June 21, from 4:30–6:00 p.m., in Room W185 A–D of the McCormick Place Convention Center. On-demand access to recorded presentations will be available to registered participants following the conclusion of the 85^th Scientific Sessions, from June 25–August 25.

Any conversation about an individual’s food, diet, and health should begin with an assessment of their access to nutrient-dense, quality, and culturally relevant food, said Maya Feller, MS, RD, CDN, food recipe author, and founder, lead dietitian, and owner of Maya Feller Nutrition. She will explain how promoting food sovereignty empowers patients.  

“Access is everything,” she said.  

Healthful eating can become part of someone’s nutrition treatment only if they can access affordable and culturally relevant groceries. However, Ms. Feller said, people cannot make optimal, personalized dietary choices if they are in areas where the only accessible grocery stores are convenience stores with nutrient-poor, packaged goods with an abundance of added sugars, salts, and saturated or synthetic fats.

For this reason, dietary recommendations must begin with listening to patients, understanding their surroundings, and advocating for access to foods, spices, and seasonings of choice.

There are other patient-centered considerations, including who shares their home, their “emotional bandwidth” for cooking, and what foods fall in that ideal overlap between health, cultural relevance, and nostalgia that Ms. Feller calls the “beloved foods” category.

Food is important to socializing, finding joy, and maintaining health, she noted, adding that the best dietary advice for people with diabetes is that which can and will be followed despite inherent difficulties of scrutinized eating. Ms. Feller will provide techniques and advice for discussing nutrition with people so they can create and share dishes that recapture the “pure bliss” of eating.

Hana Kahleova, MD, PhD, MBA, believes clinicians should also discuss the benefits of a vegan diet with their patients. Dr. Kahleova, Director of Clinical Research at Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, will present recent studies examining the effects of a plant-based diet in participants with diabetes and without diabetes.

For various populations, studies show an ad libitum, low-fat vegan diet can reduce fat content in the liver and muscle, reduce caloric intake, reduce consumption of dietary advanced glycation end products (AGEs), increase energy expenditure, increase the body’s ability to cope with oxidated stress, increase insulin sensitivity, as well as provide other benefits. Even the inclusion of some processed foods on a vegan diet has been shown to be better than eating animal products in terms of weight loss, according to another study that Dr. Kahleova will outline.

Study participants were generally receptive to the dietary change, particularly when they noticed results, Dr. Kahleova said.

“People can navigate a vegan diet, but clinicians need to inform people about this opportunity,” Dr. Kahleova said. “Sometimes I hear from physicians that they will not recommend a vegan diet because nobody will do it. But let’s leave it up to the patients. Let’s focus on the diet’s effectiveness, inform people about the opportunity, and leave it up to them if they want to do it.”

For those who consume dairy products, Jana Kraft, PhD, will present data on the effects of full-fat (3.25% fat) yogurt versus no-fat yogurt on glycemic management. She also will provide an overview of a pilot trial of people with prediabetes who consumed a Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH)-style diet.

Dr. Kraft, Associate Professor in the Departments of Animal and Veterinary Science and Medicine at the University of Vermont, said results showed overall improved glucose handling, including improved glucose effectiveness and acute insulin response to glucose for young adults assigned to the full-fat yogurt diet.

In a follow-up study focusing on people with prediabetes, the full-fat yogurt diet resulted in lower fasting blood fructosamine and triglyceride levels, an improvement in the triglyceride to HDL-cholesterol ratio, and other benefits. This supports a growing consensus that future guidelines should consider the dairy matrix and promote flexibility in dairy fat content within a healthy dietary pattern, said Dr. Kraft.

Ultimately, said Dr. Kraft, the goal of these studies is to help clinicians and people with diabetes understand, create, and enjoy a personalized, healthful diet.

“There are so many moving parts when we look at people’s actual diets,” he said. “It can be quite hard to pinpoint effects from what we are eating in our daily life, but the sky’s the limit on future research possibilities.”

Belinda S. Lennerz, MD, PhD, Attending Physician in the Division of Endocrinology at Boston Children’s Hospital and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, will discuss whether low-carbohydrate nutrition should be part of the frontline treatment for type 1 diabetes.