Grapefruit’s Double Duty

Remember the grapefruit diet? Turns out it wasn’t such a crazy idea after all: Adding grapefruit to every meal does help people lose weight, and now there’s evidence it may help stave off diabetes, too.

Earlier this year, researchers at the Scripps Clinic in Del Mar, California, discovered that eating half a fresh grapefruit with each of three daily meals helped obese people lose nearly four pounds over 12 weeks (a slow rate, but participants made no other dietary changes).

In a more recent study, the team crunched the numbers to determine grapefruit’s effects on insulin resistance. (People with this condition produce insulin, but their bodies don’t use it effectively to transport glucose in the bloodstream. The result is too much glucose and insulin in the bloodstream. Left unchecked, insulin resistance can develop into Type 2 diabetes.)

Again, grapefruit saved the day—people who ate half a grapefruit or drank juice three times a day saw significant improvements in the way their bodies used insulin. (Grape-fruit extract had no significant effect.)

Next thing you know someone will discover that those jiggle-belt machines really do melt cellulite.

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