By Kathryn Doyle
Reuters Health

For folks that might be going to diabetes, regularly eating pistachios can certainly help turn the tide, as outlined by a whole new trial from Spain.

People with so-called prediabetes have bloodstream sugar levels higher than normal yet not yet while in the diabetes range. As long as they relax, 15 to 30 % will experience diabetes within 5 years, based on the U.S. Centers for disease control and Prevention.

In the modern Spanish study, individuals with prediabetes who ate about two ounces of pistachios daily showed significant drops in glucose levels and levels of insulin and enhancements in insulin and glucose processing. Some warning signs of inflammation also dropped dramatically.

Although the trial specifically involved pistachios, many previous studies have found encouraging evidence that eating nuts may be linked with a more affordable potential for cardiovascular disease minimizing cholesterol, the authors write in Diabetes Care.

The study team divided 54 prediabetic adults into two groups. Both groups were instructed to stick with a calorie-regulated diet with One half of their time from carbohydrates, 35 % from fat and 15 percent from protein, using provided menus and seasonal recipes.

One group was presented 57 grams of pistachios, about two ounces, daily to add to their diets. To fit those calories, the comparison group added coconut oil along with fats for any four months on the study.

By get rid of the analysis, fasting blood sugar, insulin and hormonal markers of insulin resistance had decreased inside the pistachio group when they rose within the comparison group.

Participants\’ weight wouldn\’t significantly change by the end of the investigation in either group. But glucose-use by immune cells involved with inflammation, in addition to circulating inflammatory signaling molecules both dropped during the pistachio group, the authors note.

\”Although pistachios were examined with this work, I have faith that any health benefits on glucose metabolism are shared by all nuts, as they quite simply use a general composition for lots of bioactive compounds likely to beneficially affect biological pathways producing insulin resistance and diabetes,\” said Dr. Emilio Ros, director of the Lipid Clinic of theEndocrinology and Nutrition Service at Hospital Clnic in Barcelona. He isn\’t part of the new study.

Researchers on the Universitari Hospital of Sant Joan de Reus, in Reus, and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III inMadrid collaborated for the trial, that is funded by American Pistachio Growers and Paramount Farms.

\”The nut industry always supports clinical or experimental studies with their nuts, otherwise no such studies could well be carried out,\” Ros told Reuters Health by email.

He believes the research is robust enough for individuals with prediabetes to provide pistachios, as well as other nuts like peanuts, for their diet, and recommends about “a handful” every day, or around one serving.

\”This particular study builds on previous research on pistachios,\” said Dr. Joan Sabate, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the School of Public Health at Loma Linda University in California.

Sabate has researched nuts, principally walnuts, but hasn\’t been involved with the new study.

\”There a few indications that eating pistachios regularly lowers fasting glucose and lowers insulin and hormone ratio, which happens to be particularly relevant in prediabetic subjects because unless they are doing a general change in lifestyle they are going to possibly be diabetic,\” he told Reuters Health on the phone.

\”So the truth that eating nuts all the time seems to improve some of the critical parameters is incredibly relevant.\”

Results with almonds and walnuts have already been similar, he explained.

Pistachio allergies are rare, but nut allergies generally could be the only deterrent to adding them to the diet program, Ros said.

Typically people that have prediabetes are adults in order that they already know if they have a nut allergy, Sabate said.

Pistachios are incredibly loaded with energy, he noted, as a result it would be better that include the nuts into your diet without upping your total calorie intake.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/VGHqyU Diabetes Care, online August 14, 2014.