Eating almonds daily may improve diabetes risk factors: Study

Eating almonds regularly may lead to improvements in both body weight and blood sugar in overweight and obese people, according to a study. The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Nutrition, found that eating almonds daily for 12 weeks reduced insulin resistance, improved pancreatic function, and helped control blood glucose levels. The group given almonds also achieved significant reductions in body weight, body mass index (BMI), and waist circumference over the intervention period and lowered their total cholesterol, the researchers said. ”Our almond consumers had improvements to both body weight and blood sugar,” said Viswanathan Mohan, president and chief of diabetes research at Madras Diabetes Research Foundation in Chennai, and one of the study authors. ”Obesity is a health problem seen around the world, and we know obesity raises the risk of chronic diseases, like type 2 diabetes. We also know this is a complex problem, tightly interwoven with diabetes, and we think we have identified a rather simple solution,” Mohan said in a statement. Gayathri Rajagopal, PhD scholar at the University of Madras, and first author on the study, noted that almond eaters demonstrated enhanced function of their beta cells, which are the cells in the pancreas that make insulin. ”This is substantial for people with prediabetes and suggests the potential for regular almond consumption to delay onset of diabetes. Besides that, we know almonds increase satiety making them a healthy snack for people predisposed to type 2 diabetes,” Rajagopal said. The resaerchers also found that people participating in the almond intervention had better levels of total cholesterol and triglycerides — both of which are very important to manage obesity and diabetes. Nuts like almonds are a healthy dietary component that could reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease as well, they said.