Walnuts and Omega-3 -- What Diabetics Need to Know
If you suffer from diabetes, don't let it destroy your heart health -- fight back with omega-3! New studies from the Universities of Yale, Loma Linda, and Harvard show how adding walnuts to your daily diet can work in different ways than fish oil and improve your heart health.
Boost your heart health with omega-3
According to the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, a diet of both fish and walnuts is required to effectively reduce heart disease. Scientists recently discovered that essential fatty acids from fish oil and walnuts affect the heart differently.
Diets supplemented with omega-3 rich walnuts reduce cholesterol levels while fish oil reduce blood levels of triglycerides. In one study led by Rajaram, a researcher at Loma Linda University, she discovered a diet including 42.5 grams of walnuts per week reduced both total cholesterol and LDL (bad) cholesterol. In the same study, subjects who ate a diet including fish twice per week saw no reduction in cholesterol.
After completing 13 studies, Harvard researcher's state diets rich in walnuts can significantly reduce cholesterol levels and improve healthy blood lipid ratios.
In addition, they also state, 'Other results reported in the trials indicated that walnuts provided significant benefits for certain antioxidant capacity and inflammatory markers and had no adverse effects on body weight.' (Source: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition)
In addition to lowering cholesterol levels, researchers at Yale show in their results the potential of a walnut-rich diet to significantly improve blood flow by 2.2% and decrease blood sugar levels in people with Type II Diabetes.
To the 24 million diabetics in the United States, these findings are significant to their heart health. If you suffer from diabetes, discuss these studies with your physician, add walnuts and other omega-3 foods to your daily diet, and reap the benefits of omega-3 for your heart health.
