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Gobbling up too many refined wheat and rice products, along with eating too few whole grains, is driving the growth of new cases of type 2 diabetes around the world, according to a new study that models data until 2018.

“Our study suggests that poor quality carbohydrates are an important dietary-attributable driver of type 2 diabetes worldwide,” senior author Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, professor of nutrition at Tufts University and professor of medicine at Tufts Medical School in Boston, says in a statement.

Another key factor: People are eating too many red and processed meats, such as bacon, sausages, salami and the like, according to the study. Those three factors — eating too few whole grains and too many processed grains and meats — were the main drivers of more than 14 million new cases of type 2 diabetes in 2018, according to the study, which was published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine.

In fact, the study estimated that 7 in 10 cases of type 2 diabetes worldwide in 2018 were related to poor food choices.

“These new findings reveal critical areas for the national and global approach to improving nutrition and reducing the devastating burdens of diabetes,” said Mozaffarian, who is also the editor-in-chief of the Tufts Health & Nutrition Letter.

Mozaffarian and his team developed a dietary intake research model between 1990 and 2018 and applied it in 184 countries. Compared to 1990, there were 8.6 million more cases of type 2 diabetes in 2018 due to poor diet, according to the study.

Researchers found that eating too many unhealthy foods was more of a factor in type 2 diabetes globally than not eating enough. healthy foods, especially for men compared to women, younger adults compared to older adults, and among urban versus rural residents.

More than 60% of the world’s total cases of the disease attributable to diet were due to excessive intake of just six harmful dietary habits: eating too much refined rice, wheat and potatoes; too many processed and unprocessed red meats; and drinking too many sugary drinks and fruit juices.

Inadequate intake of five protective dietary factors (fruits, non-starchy vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains and yogurt) was responsible for just over 39% of new cases.

People in Poland and Russia, where diets tend to focus on potatoes and red and processed meats, and other countries in central and eastern Europe, as well as Central Asia, had the highest percentage of new cases of type 2 diabetes related to diet.

Colombia, Mexico and other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean also had large numbers of new cases, which researchers said could be due to reliance on sugary drinks and processed meat, as well as low intake of whole grains.

“Our modeling approach does not prove causality and our findings should be considered as risk estimates,” the authors wrote.