Background: There are insufficient studies on the association between fruit intake and the risk of diabetes mellitus among non-diabetic subjects; however, some previous studies have reported a lower frequency of diabetes in subjects with high fruit intake. In this study, we investigated the relationship between impaired fasting glucose (pre-diabetes mellitus; a high-risk group for developing diabetes; HbA1c level, 5.7%?6.4%) and the frequency of fruit intake in Korean adults.

Methods: We included 3,674 adult participants (>30 years old; 1,467 men, 2,207 women) who were a part of the fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey in 2011. The participants were categorized into four groups based on the frequency of their fruit intake: daily group, more than once per week group, more than once per month group, and less than six times per year group. We compared the risk of pre-diabetes mellitus in these four fruit intake-based groups.

Results: We observed a significantly lower risk of impaired fasting glucose in women who consumed fruits daily compared to women who consumed fruits less than six times per year (odds ratio, 0.34; 95% confidence interval, 0.129?0.893). However, in men, we did not observe any significant association between impaired fasting glucose and fruit intake.

Conclusion: Impaired fasting glucose is less frequent with daily fruit intake, indicating a lower risk of pre-diabetes mellitus; however, this association is only observed in adult Korean women.