Daily Consumption of Walnuts Has a Positive Role in Improving Metabolic Syndrome

Istanbul, Turkey, Tuesday June 16, 2020—(AETOSWire)-- A new study suggests that consuming walnuts may help restore metabolic syndrome to a normal level or improve metabolic syndrome risk factors.

According to a paper published in Nutrition Research and Practice, a journal of the Korean Nutrition Society, regular consumption of walnuts may bring positive changes to metabolic syndrome status by increasing HDL cholesterol and decreasing fasting glucose level. Especially, consuming walnuts daily could contribute to alleviating potential prevalence rate of diabetes by favorably changing HbA1c and circulating adiponectin levels.

This study was conducted in the form of controlled crossover trial after randomly dividing 119 of Korean male and female adults (aged 30 to 55 years) with metabolic syndrome into two groups. Subjects in the first group were instructed to consume 45g of walnuts (305.4kcal, 6.4g of carbohydrate, 28.9 g of fat, and 6.4 g of protein), and the second group received iso-caloric white bread (313.3kcal, 60.5g of carbohydrate, 3.4g of fat, and 10.2g of protein) per day for 16 weeks as snack.

According to the study, the improvement rate for the five diagnostic factors of metabolic syndrome, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol levels, abdominal fat and triglycerides, is revealed to be 28.6% ~ 52.8%. Moreover, 51.2% of participants with metabolic syndrome at baseline reverted to a normal status after the 16 weeks of walnut consumption.

Regarding the result of the study, Dr. Hyun-Jin Park said, “Metabolic syndrome is a major health issue around the world, but as Korean food culture tends to consume rice cakes, bread and instant noodles as snacks with its staple food being rice, diagnosis rate of metabolic syndrome is higher than that of normal body types.” Also, “As this clinical trial has shown, walnut consumption has a positive effect on the improvement of the metabolic syndrome. Therefore, taking walnuts as snacks, instead of high-carbohydrate snacks, may be a good choice for the prevention and improvement of metabolic syndrome.” she added.