Adding walnuts to diet could reduce an older woman’s risk of developing diabetes, according to US research.
The study, by researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, built on previous research which had revealed a potential correlation between nuts and the prevention of diabetes. The Harvard study pinpointed walnuts as the nut most likely to reduce middle-aged women’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
Nuts have a high fat content and this would seem to make them an unlikely aid to preventing diabetes, one of the causes of which is known to be obesity. However, the Nurses’ Health Studies I and II, which has been monitoring women’s diet and health for three decades, looked at middle-aged women who had been consuming walnuts over a 10-year period and discovered a possible link between eating walnuts regularly and a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.
The Harvard study did note that eating too many nuts could be a health concern because nuts are high in fat and also have a high energy content. However, the research showed that women who ate a lot of walnuts didn’t put on weight and now more research is planned to explore exactly how walnuts stop an individual gaining weight.
Walnuts are rich in a fatty acid known as polyunsaturated fatty acids, PUFAs, and have many other nutrients, antioxidants and compounds that are beneficial to health. PUFAs help with cognition and brain function and the Harvard team believe PUFAs may hold the key to diabetes prevention.
Type 2 diabetes is the most common form of the blood disorder, in which the body fails to produce enough insulin or any insulin at all to convert the glucose in food into fuel for the blood cells. It is considered one of the major worldwide health problems, usually affecting people over the age of 40.
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