  A research presented at the European Congress on Obesity in Sofia, Bulgaria reveals that if part of a regular diet, pistachio nuts could protect from type 2 diabetes due to a resulting decreased insulin resistance that protects against disease development.
Regular consumption of the tree nut, rich in unsaturated fatty acids and bioactive compounds, could potentially improve health outcomes for people at risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
“Frequent consumption of pistachios could improve glucose and insulin metabolism in people with prediabetes,” said Mònica Bulló, PhD, of the human nutrition unit, Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, IISPV, Universitat Rovira i Virgili in Reus, Spain.
Bulló and colleagues followed 54 people with prediabetes for 4 months in a randomized, crossover clinical trial. Participants were assigned to a control diet or a pistachios diet (57 g daily); the isocaloric diets did not differ in content of saturated fatty acids or cholesterol.
At 4 months, significant decreases were seen in fasting glucose with the pistachio diet compared with the control diet. The metabolic risk markers fibrinogen, glucagon-like peptide-1, oxidized LDL and platelet factor 4 showed significant decreases with the pistachio diet vs. control diet. Compared with the control diet, the pistachio diet group showed a decrease in HbA1c and serum LDL cholesterol levels, but not significant. There were no significant changes in BMI between groups.
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