Here's an excerpt from a study on the effect of fruit in the diabetic diet on blood glucose levels. It provides more evidence that the paleo diet is helpful for diabetics.

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    Title:  An Apple A Day Keeps High Glucose At Bay.
    Author:  MARIE MCCARREN
    Source:  Diabetes Forecast, August 1999 v52 i8 p77.
                                                                     
A diet with lots of fresh fruit and low-starch vegetables will lead to lower blood glucose levels than either a high- or medium-starch diet, according to a University of Minnesota study.

The researchers designed three test diets (see page 78 for details). The high-carbohydrate, high-starch diet contained 55 percent carbohydrate, with an emphasis on starch (for example, potato and bread). The second meal was designed to mimic the normal, American diet. It contained 40 percent
carbohydrate. The third diet was the experimental diet. It contained about the same amount of carbohydrate (43 percent) as the American diet, but it emphasized fruit (oranges, apples, prunes) rather than starch.

Six men with mild type 2 diabetes, age 56 to 70, volunteered for the study. They were not taking diabetes medications. The time since they had been diagnosed with diabetes ranged from one week to four years.

The subjects spent seven days in a special diagnostic and treatment unit. They fasted overnight, for 10 to 12 hours, before the start of the study. The average fasting blood glucose level was 158 mg/dl.

On days 1, 4, and 7, each man ate each of the three tests diets, in random order. They ate identical meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, each containing 29.5 percent of total calories, and had bedtime snacks, which contained 11.5 percent of the total calories.

They ate their meals at 8 a.m., 12 p.m., and 5 p.m., and their snacks at 9 p.m. Their blood glucose levels were checked at 7:30 a.m., 7:45 a.m., and 8:00 a.m., 30 minutes after each meal, and hourly for the remainder of the 24-hour study period.

When the men ate the experimental diet (high-fruit, low-starch), blood glucose levels rose less after each meal than when the men ate the typical American or high-starch diets. For example, on average, blood glucose rose about 110 mg/dl
(to about 265 mg/dl) shortly after the men ate the high-starch breakfast. Blood glucose rose only about 50 mg/dl (to about 210 mg/dl) after they ate the experimental (low-starch) meal.

Earlier studies have shown that eating or drinking glucose results in higher blood glucose levels than eating or drinking fructose or galactose. The high-starch diet contained 247 grams of glucose (some was eaten as starch,
some as sucrose), 32 grams fructose, and 12 grams galactose. The American diet contained 189 grams of glucose, 19 grams fructose, and 22 grams galactose. The
experimental diet contained 134 grams of glucose, 75 grams fructose, and 7 grams galactose.

"If you substitute non-starchy foods for the starchy foods in your diet, you will likely see lower blood glucose levels after meals," says Mary C. Gannon, PhD, director of the Metabolic Research Laboratory at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Minneapolis.