Nuts To Diabetics And Pre-diabetics

Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health have for many years been scrutinizing studies for associations between diet and disease. One of their discoveries is that nuts can reduce the likelihood of diabetes.

Nuts are mostly fat: but, good fat, healthy fat, unsaturated fat. Up to 80 percent of their calories come from fat. It may be that this fat, as well as other nutrients in nuts increase the bodies control over glucose and insulin.

In the Harvard study, nut eaters had a 16 percent reduction in the risk of developing diabetes if they ate 1 to 4 ounces of nuts a week. Those women who ate five or more ounces of nuts a week saw a 27 percent reduction in risk of diabetes compared to the initial group.

Would you expect the peanut butter eaters to do as well? You would have been right if you said yes. Only 5 ounces of peanut butter a week, or more, brought them 20 percent less of a chance of developing diabetes over those who avoided peanut butter altogether.

Peanuts are not true nuts, they are legumes. But, they are near the usefulness of nuts, because they share many of the properties of nuts.

You may decide to add nuts to your diet to avoid diabetes or to reduce the need for other treatments. However, you must reduce your bread or red meat portions to offset the extra calories coming from the nuts. If you don't, it is likely you will begin to gain weight, and the extra weight will then cause you to be more inclined to diabetes.

Nothing is easy. When you make a change in your diet things may pop up you didn't expect. Two possible problems here are rancidity and herpes.

Quite some time ago a study was undertaken to determine the amount of rancidity found in commercially available jars of peanut butter. All of the samples contained some rancid peanut butter. Assuming this has been corrected be sure to keep your peanut butter in a cool place after opening it. Freshly ground peanut butter is best. Rancid oil is murder on tissues you need to stave off a chronic disease like - oh - say, diabetes.

Most, if not all nuts including peanut butter, are well known for firing up a herpes outbreak, especially genital herpes. Arginine, an amino acid found in nuts is the likely culprit. Genital herpes can break out anywhere it pleases, the worst being in the eyes or brain. Inside the brain it can cause depression, fatigue and headaches. The bottom is the biggest target but it may hit the ribs, even the fingers. It may cause lower or upper back pains.

If there is no downside on your chemistry, nuts can help you avoid diabetes altogether, or improve diabetes progress, and nuts may be a possible way to reduce the use of fast foods.