New Delhi : Love to eat potatoes? Consume the starchy vegetable baked or boiled, but not as French fries, according to a study which showed that eating the popular snack item thrice a week may increase the risk of diabetes by 20 per cent.

The study, which tracked the diets of more than 205,000 adults over decades, however, showed that other forms of potatoes — including baked, boiled, and mashed — do not increase the risk of diabetes.

The study, published in the BMJ, also found that swapping any form of potato for whole grains may lower the risk of diabetes.

“The public health message here is simple and powerful: small changes in our daily diet can have an important impact on the risk of type 2 diabetes,” said corresponding author Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

“Limiting potatoes — especially limiting French fries — and choosing healthy, whole-grain sources of carbohydrate could help lower the risk of type 2 diabetes across the population,” Willett added.

The new study examined the diets and diabetes outcomes of 205,107 men and women.

For more than 30 years, participants regularly responded to dietary questionnaires, detailing the frequency with which they consumed certain foods, including French fries; baked, boiled, or mashed potatoes; and whole grains.

Throughout the study period, 22,299 participants reported that they developed diabetes.

The researchers calculated, however, that eating whole grains — such as whole grain whole grains farro — in place of baked, boiled, or mashed potatoes could reduce the risk of diabetes by 4 per cent.

Replacing French fries with whole grains could bring diabetes risk down by 19 per cent. Even swapping refined grains for French fries was estimated to lower diabetes risk.