For people at risk of developing type 2 diabetes, regular pistachios consumption could help prevent it, as shown in a new clinical trial recently published in our country.
Prediabetics have blood glucose values above the normal level, but not yet within the diabetes range.If they do nothing, between 15 % and 30 % of them will develop the disease in five years, according to the Center for the Control and Prevention of diseases in the United States.
In this new Spanish study, prediabetic participants who consumed 57 grams of pistachios showed significant falls in blood sugar and insulin levels, in addition to improvements in insulin and glucose processing.
Some signals of inflammation also dramatically decreased.Although the study specifically involved the pistachios, several investigations have found evidence encouraging that nuts can be linked to a lower risk of heart disease and lower cholesterol, as the authors explain in a report published in the magazine Diabetes Care.
The authors divided 54 prediabetic adults into two groups, which consumed a diet with 50 % of the calories derived from carbohydrates, 35 % of the fat and 15 % of protein, from menus and seasonal recipes.One of the groups added to the diet 57 grams daily of pistachios, while the other added the consumption of olive oil or other fats in the four months that the study lasted.
In the end, blood glucose levels, insulin and insulin resistance hormonal markers, decreased in pistachio consumers and increased in the control group.
The weight of the participants did not vary significantly in either of the two groups towards the end of the study;But the use of glucose in immunological cells associated with inflammation and circulating molecules of inflammation decreased among pistachio consumers, the authors observed.
"Although this study focused on pistachios, I think that all nuts have this benefit in glucose metabolism dueDr. Emilio Ros, director of the Lipid Clinic of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service of the Clinical Hospital of Barcelona, explained.
Researchers at Sant Joan de Reus University Hospital and the Carlos III Health Institute in Madrid, collaborated in this study funded by American Pistachio producers and the company Paramount Farms.
For Ros, evidence is solid enough for prediabetics to incorporate pistachios, or other fruits, such as peanuts, to the diet.He also recommended consuming "a handful" per day, that is, a portion.
