An estimated 4.5 million people are living with diabetes in the UK today. Some 700 are newly diagnosed each day — it’s a modern plague and a horribly common cause of early death.

But in many cases, diabetes can be eased, and even reversed, through changes in diet. In fact, by switching to a healthy diet, you can start improving your health within a matter of hours.

There are two types of diabetes, both of which are characterised by chronically elevated levels of sugar in your blood. Type 1 occurs if your pancreas stops producing insulin (the hormone that keeps your blood sugar in check), and Type 2 if your body becomes resistant to insulin’s effects.

Type 2, the most common form of diabetes, is primarily caused by a fatty build-up around our muscle and liver cells, and 90 per cent of people who get it are overweight.

Although both forms of diabetes can be controlled through drugs, it is still regarded as a life-shortening condition because of the widespread damage caused by the build-up of sugar in the blood over time.

This can ultimately lead to blindness, kidney failure, heart attacks, and stroke.

UK statistics show that people with diabetes are 37.5 per cent more likely to die early than their peers, which means more than 20,000 people with diabetes die before their time each year. But even if you already have diabetes, and all of the associated complications, there is still hope.

A plant-based diet may even reverse Type 2 diabetes. Studies show that dietary changes can enable those who have had Type 2 diabetes for decades to get off all their insulin injections in as little as two weeks.

It seems the more plant-based your diet, the more likely you are to be able to maintain a healthy weight — an important factor in diabetes control.

You can essentially eat as much as you want without worrying about counting calories, skipping meals or portion control, because most plant foods are naturally nutrient dense and low in calories.

But beyond the weight loss aspect, there are clearly other protective benefits of a plant-based diet.

In studies, even participants who didn’t lose weight when put on a plant-based diet, or even those who gained weight, still appeared to improve their diabetes.

In fact, a study of tens of thousands of adults in the U.S. and Canada found people who cut out all animal products, including fish, dairy and eggs, appeared to have a 78 per cent reduced risk of diabetes. One key reason could be the fact that plant fats are so much better for the body than animal fats.

Saturated fats can wreak all sorts of havoc in muscle cells and may result in the accumulation of toxic compounds from being broken down.

But the unsaturated fats found mostly in nuts, olives, and avocados may protect against the detrimental effects of saturated fat.

Plant variety is important. The addition of just two different types of fruit and vegetables a week, for instance, has been associated with an 8 per cent reduction in the incidence of Type 2 diabetes.

Check off my Daily Dozen every day and experiment with the delicious recipes in the Mail all this week, and you will be on the right road.

There is an important medical warning: if you take drugs to control blood sugar or blood pressure, you should talk to your GP before adopting a plant-based diet so they can monitor the drugs as you get better naturally.

And if you take the blood- thinning drug warfarin, you should talk to your doctor before significantly increasing your greens intake. The drug works by crippling the enzyme that recycles vitamin K, which is involved in clotting your blood.

So, if your system gets an influx of fresh vitamin K, which is concentrated in greens, you can undermine the effectiveness of the drug. You should still be able to eat greens, but your doctor may have to adjust the dose of the drug to match your dietary intake.

LEGUMES

The more pulses, beans and legumes you eat, the healthier you may be. Many studies have shown that people who pack their diet with split peas, chickpeas, and lentils tend to weigh less, have slimmer waists and lower blood pressure compared with people who don’t eat many legumes.

One study asked people to eat 1 kg of pulses a week without making any other changes to their diet. A second group was asked to cut 500 calories a day from their diet. Even though the pulses group was eating far more food, these people lost the most weight.

It seems that eating chickpeas and other beans is just as effective at slimming waistlines and improving blood sugar as cutting calories. It also improves cholesterol and insulin regulation.

I knew beans were healthy, but I didn’t realise just how healthy they are until the amazing microbiome research — studying the array of bacteria that live in the gut, and how they can affect your health — started coming out.

Gut bacteria love pulses, beans and legumes, which is why they take such an important role in my Daily Dozen, and I encourage you to aim to eat three servings a day. A serving is 60 g of hummus; 130 g of cooked beans, split peas, lentils, tofu, or tempeh; or 150 g of fresh peas.

There are a few ways you can make it easier to get your three servings a day:

Using dried pulses is cheaper, but it can be time consuming, so cook them in large batches, then portion and freeze.

Instead of making one or two servings at a time, cook a large pot of a staple grain with a quick-cooking legume (such as lentils) mixed in, then portion and freeze until you need them.

Prepare double batches of slow-cook soups and stews. You’ll save time, and flavour is enhanced, too.

Double up on food prep such as chopping onions, refrigerating extra in a sealed container for the next meal.

Keep an open tin of beans in the fridge as a reminder to put them in anything and everything.

When you open a can of cooked beans, save the water. This viscous liquid, called ‘aquafaba’, is a great source of soluble fibre. It behaves like egg whites, and so it can be whipped into stiff peaks or added to recipes to be used as a binder.

The mix of starches, proteins, and other soluble plant solids which have migrated from the seeds to the water during the cooking process gives aquafaba a wide range of useful emulsifying, foaming, binding, gelatinising and thickening properties.

LIVER PROTECTION

A condition called non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has quietly become one of the most common cause of chronic liver disease. Obese people are particularly at risk of developing the condition.

It begins with the build-up of fat on the liver and can lead to inflammation and scarring (cirrhosis).

Just one can of a fizzy drink per day appears to raise the odds of fatty liver disease by 45 per cent.

But eating oats has the power to significantly improve liver function among overweight men and women — and help them lose weight as well.