Regular walnut intake may slash type 2 diabetes risk

Eating walnuts at least twice a week can significantly reduce the risk of type 2 diabetes, according to new research published in the Journal of Nutrition .
For the study, researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health followed nearly 140,000 female nurses in the United States over a 10-year period to see how many developed type 2 diabetes. Particular attention was paid to their dietary habits, including details on their intake of nuts .
After adjusting for weight and body fat, they found that women who ate a 28g bag of walnuts just twice a week were almost a quarter (24%) less likely to develop the metabolic disorder than women who ate them rarely or not at all.
Furthermore, the results showed that women who consumed 28g of walnuts once a week slashed their diabetes risk by 13%, while those who ate them one to three times a month reduced their risk by 4% compared to those who consumed few or no walnuts .
“These results suggest higher walnut consumption is associated with a significantly lower risk of type 2 diabetes in women,” the researchers said.
The Harvard study is not the first to show the anti-diabetic effects of walnuts, but is believed to be one of the largest to associate regularly consumption of the nuts with reduced risk of type 2 diabetes .