By Joseph Hall

Nuts, long thought a dieting no-no, can actually help control obesity-based Type 2 diabetes, a recent Toronto study says. A handful or two of raw, salt-free nuts a day can reduce blood glucose levels nearly as much as some pharmaceutical products, the research out of the University of Toronto (U of T) and Toronto’s St. Michael’s Hospital shows.

“Nuts are only recently being rehabilitated as being fatty foods that everyone should avoid,” says Dr. David Jenkins, a Canada Research Chair in nutrition and metabolism at the U of T, and the study’s lead author. “And obviously people with diabetes, especially because of their proneness to being overweight …. have been told not to eat (them).”

Jenkins says that nuts like almonds, walnuts or pecans can lower blood glucose and cholesterol levels if they replace a hamburger or other common fat and carbohydrate sources in diabetic diets. Such a dietary exchange would replace saturated fats and carbohydrates with vegetable proteins and oils. Jenkins says these “good” fats and proteins can actually push down blood glucose levels through a mechanism that’s not yet fully understood. As well, he says, they just don’t bring as much glucose-producing nutrients in as other types of fatty foods. “So you are winning on both counts,” Jenkins adds.

This combined nut effect can lower standard glucose count levels—where seven is an acceptable number—by an average of 0.2. That’s nearly as much as the 0.3 reductions medications must achieve before they can be recognized in the U.S. as an effective glucose treatment. Some people experience major glucose-lowering with the nuts. “And the other thing we’ve found with nuts for quite a while is that they lower (blood) cholesterol,” Jenkins says. “Now there’s a real problem for diabetics as well, they have an increased risk of heart disease.”

A nut growers’ association funded the study, which was released by the Diabetes Care journal, Jenkins says.

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