Fat has gotten a bad rap for the last 30 years. It’s supposed to cause obesity, heart diseases and type 2 diabetes.

But not all fat is created equal. And anymore, one in particular is considered extremely heart healthy.

But can this healthy fat conquer Type 2 Diabetes?

That’s what researchers from Huazhong University of Science & Technology, China wanted to find out. And the results may surprise you.

Cholesterol, hypertension, and other such cardiovascular effects are both causes and consequences of type 2 diabetes, with the result that they almost always coincide with it. Keeping these cardiovascular markers under control, therefore, is one way to control your diabetes symptoms.

Many people believe that fish and other marine-derived omega-3 sources can combat type 2 diabetes in this way.

A review of the scientific literature appeared in the October 2 edition of Plos One that, unfortunately, gave only half of the answers we need. In their analysis, the authors considered only strict, randomly controlled scientific trials of the effect of marine-derived omega-3 supplements on diabetic patients. Only 20 studies met their criteria for inclusion in their review.

The review found that omega-3 supplements significantly reduced the concentration of triglycerides circulating in the patients’ blood. This is a great finding, as these are fats that contribute considerably to the cardiovascular disease that accompanies type 2 diabetes.

The other conclusions were less certain. Supplements with less than either 1.5 g of EPA or 1.5 g of DHA had no effect on blood glucose levels, total cholesterol, or body-mass index. Those with more than 1.5 g of either of these two components of omega-3 showed some promise, as they were able to lower cholesterol, body mass index, blood glucose, and circulating insulin, but the effect was so weak that the authors were reluctant to draw any definite conclusion from it.

They tentatively inferred that these effects could have been stronger if the studies they examined had more participants and longer durations, as the larger and longer trials in their review showed the strongest beneficial effects.

From this, they concluded that omega-3 could be useful to type 2 diabetics if it is prescribed in sufficiently large amounts and early enough after diagnosis.

American Mayo Clinic researchers concluded something similar in the journal Diabetes Care in 2000. According to their review of previous studies, fish oil could reduce triglycerides and increase good cholesterol, but it could not change blood glucose levels. The studies they included in their review had an average duration of 12 weeks and they specified three grams as the minimum daily EPA or DHA intake.

This is promising. While fish oil and other marine-derived omega-3 sources are not magic bullets to cure type 2 diabetes, it can decrease the fat in your arteries and increase the good cholesterol that removes the fat from your arteries.

A 2012 literature review, published in the British Journal of Nutrition, is also relevant. The authors reviewed studies that tested whether omega-3 could cause type II diabetes in previously healthy people.

They found that consumers of fish and fish oil supplements had no lesser or greater risk of diabetes than the general population, but that people who obtained their omega-3 from plant sources in the form of ALA had a slightly lower risk of developing diabetes. It might, therefore, be the case that plant sources of omega-3 are heart healthier than marine sources, and that you should stock up on flaxseeds rather than on fish oil.

For sure, no one type of fat will cure your type 2 diabetes. For that you need this solid, 3-step strategy that has helped thousands of readers…

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