Diabetes Health Talk

olive oil

Believe it or not, nuts could have a slight edge, especially if you’re concerned about metabolic syndrome (including diabetes), a combo of health conditions that raises heart disease risk.

Nuts for Your Health
In a 1-year study, people who ate a Mediterranean-style diet and added an extra ounce of nuts (roughly a small handful) had a lower incidence of metabolic syndrome compared with the people who ate the same diet but instead added 4 to 5 ounces more of olive oil every day.

The Whole Truth
Why the difference? Here’s one simple theory: Olive oil is a fat extracted from olives, but nuts are a whole food with more good-for-you stuff in them, including fiber, protein, and minerals. Both olive oil and nuts can — and should — have a place in a healthy diet. In the study, both seemed to help tamp down high triglycerides and abdominal fat better than a low-fat diet did. But the nut eaters also experienced better blood pressure, which is one reason their metabolic syndrome numbers were better.

If you found out that one particular health condition could increase your risk of at least ten other serious medical problems, you’d do Millions of Americans have syndrome X taking hold in their bodies and they don’t even know it.
everything you could to avoid that health condition, wouldn’t you? Yet millions of Americans have just such a condition taking hold in their bodies and they don’t even know it. The condition is called metabolic syndrome (also known as syndrome X or insulin resistance
syndrome), and it is quickly becoming a pandemic in the United States, affecting as many as 47 million Americans.

The list of health problems that metabolic syndrome can lead to is long and concerning. It doubles a person’s risk of heart attack, doubles a person’s risk of stroke, and also can lead to cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, fatty liver, cholesterol gallstones, asthma, and even some forms of cancer.

Here’s the good news: adding a brisk walk to your routine every day may be enough to help stop this syndrome, and all of the accompanying health ills, in its tracks.