Pistachio Consumption Prevents and Improves Lipid Dysmetabolism by Reducing the Lipid Metabolizing Gene Expression in Diet-Induced Obese Mice.
Antioxidative Efficacy of a Pistacia Lentiscus Supplement and Its Effect on the Plasma Amino Acid Profile in Inflammatory Bowel Disease: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled Trial.
Nuts and Cardio-Metabolic Disease: A Review of Meta-Analyses.
Walnut Consumption for Two Years and Leukocyte Telomere Attrition in Mediterranean Elders: Results of a Randomized Controlled Trial.
Metabolizable Energy from Cashew Nuts is Less than that Predicted by Atwater Factors.
Potential Prebiotic Properties of Nuts and Edible Seeds and Their Relationship to Obesity.
Obesity is a global epidemic chronic condition and is progressing at a rapid rate. This review focuses on the potential prebiotic properties of nuts and edible seeds and the plausible mechanisms that their consumption may help the prevention and the management of overweight and obesity. The literature review was performed by searching papers about the topic in MEDLINE and SCOPUS databases. The healthy attributes of nuts and edible seeds, especially dietary fibers and polyphenols contents, indicate that their mechanism of weight gain prevention may occur through interaction with the gut microbiota, by means of prebiotic effects. Among the etiological factors associated with obesity, the gut microbiota seems to play a significant role. Dysbiosis causes an imbalance in energy homeostasis that contributes to obesity. Three mechanisms are proposed in this review to explain the potential role of nut and edible seed consumption on intestinal homeostasis and body weight control: maintenance of the enteric barrier integrity, improvement of anti-inflammatory status and enhancement of butyrate synthesis. Further high-quality clinical trials should explore the interaction between oilseed consumption, microbiota, and body adiposity control, particularly investigating the microbiota metabolites and their relation to the prevention and management of obesity.
Heat and Pressure Treatments on Almond Protein Stability and Change in Immunoreactivity after Simulated Human Digestion.
Almond is consumed worldwide and renowned as a valuable healthy food. Despite this, it is also a potent source of allergenic proteins that can trigger several mild to life-threatening immunoreactions. Food processing proved to alter biochemical characteristics of proteins, thus affecting the respective allergenicity. In this paper, we investigated the effect of autoclaving, preceded or not by a hydration step, on the biochemical and immunological properties of almond proteins. Any variation in the stability and immunoreactivity of almond proteins extracted from the treated materials were evaluated by total protein quantification, Enzyme Linked Immunosorbent Assay (ELISA), and protein profiling by electrophoresis-based separation (SDS-PAGE). The sole autoclaving applied was found to weakly affect almond protein stability, despite what was observed when hydration preceded autoclaving, which resulted in a loss of approximately 70% of total protein content compared to untreated samples, and a remarkable reduction of the final immunoreactivity. The final SDS-PAGE protein pattern recorded for hydrated and autoclaved almonds disclosed significant changes. In addition, the same samples were further submitted to human-simulated gastro-intestinal (GI) digestion to evaluate potential changes induced by these processing methods on allergen digestibility. Digestion products were identified by High Pressure Liquid Chromatography-High Resolution Tandem Mass Spectrometry (HPLC-HRMS/MS) analysis followed by software-based data mining, and complementary information was provided by analyzing the proteolytic fragments lower than 6 kDa in size. The autoclave-based treatment was found not to alter the allergen digestibility, whereas an increased susceptibility to proteolytic action of digestive enzymes was observed in almonds subjected to autoclaving of prehydrated almond kernels. Finally, the residual immunoreactivity of the GI-resistant peptides was in-silico investigated by bioinformatic tools. Results obtained confirm that by adopting both approaches, no epitopes associated with known allergens survived, thus demonstrating the potential effectiveness of these treatments to reduce almond allergenicity.
Almond Allergy: An Overview on Prevalence, Thresholds, Regulations and Allergen Detection.
Food allergy has been on the increase for many years. The prevalence of allergy to different foods varies widely depending on type of food, frequency of consumption and geographic location. Data from the literature suggests that the prevalence of tree nut allergy is of the order of 1% in the general population. Almond is one such tree nut that is frequently eaten in many parts of the world and represents a potential allergenic hazard. Given the need to label products that contain allergens, a number of different methods of direct and indirect detection have been developed. However, in the absence of population-based threshold data, and given that almond allergy is rare, the sensitivity of the required detection is unknown and thus aims as low as possible. Typically, this is less than 1 ppm, which matches the thresholds that have been shown for other allergens. This review highlights the lack of quantitative data on prevalence and thresholds for almonds, which is limiting progress in consumer protection.
Adherence to the Mediterranean Diet Is Related to Healthy Habits, Learning Processes, and Academic Achievement in Adolescents: A Cross-Sectional Study.
BACKGROUND: Several studies have shown that following a healthy diet and practicing regular physical activity (PA) are related with multiple health benefits. However, the cognitive and academic implications of these behaviors within adolescents requires further study. MATERIAL AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted with a simple of 1059 adolescents from Spain. The main instruments employed were the Adherence to Mediterranean Diet Test (KIDMED), the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents (PAQ-A) and the Motivation and Learning Strategies Short Form (MSLQ-SF). RESULTS: Practicing PA for more than three hours per week was related to better dietary habits (p < 0.001) such as increased consumption of vegetables (0.75 ± 0.43 vs. 0.62 ± 0.48), fish (0.67 ± 0.47 vs. 0.58 ± 0.49), cereals (0.85 ± 0.35 vs. 0.77 ± 0.41) and nuts (0.44 ± 0.49 vs. 0.35 ± 0.47). High adherence to a Mediterranean diet (MD) was positively related to elaboration strategies (r = 0.116), organizational strategies (r = 0.109), critical thinking (r = 0.116), self-regulation (r = 0.159), time and study habits (r = 0.160), self-regulation of effort (r = 0.118), and intrinsically orientated goals (r = 0.090) (p < 0.01 for all variables). Practicing PA every week was also related to improvements in several of the measured variables and in addition was related to lower levels of anxiety within the academic environment (r = -0.070; p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS: Given the benefits of eating habits and the practice of PA in the cognitive processes involved in adolescent learning, intervention programs within the educational context are recommended to improve healthy habits.
A Randomized Controlled Trial to Compare the Effect of Peanuts and Almonds on the Cardio-Metabolic and Inflammatory Parameters in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.
A low carbohydrate diet (LCD), with some staple food being replaced with nuts, has been shown to reduce weight, improve blood glucose, and regulate blood lipid in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). These nuts include tree nuts and ground nuts. Tree nut consumption is associated with improved cardio-vascular and inflammatory parameters. However, the consumption of tree nuts is difficult to promote in patients with diabetes because of their high cost. As the main ground nut, peanuts contain a large number of beneficial nutrients, are widely planted, and are affordable for most patients. However, whether peanuts and tree nuts in combination with LCD have similar benefits in patients with T2DM remains unknown; although almonds are the most consumed and studied tree nut. This study sought to compare the effect of peanuts and almonds, incorporated into a LCD, on cardio-metabolic and inflammatory measures in patients with T2DM. Of the 32 T2DM patients that were recruited, 17 were randomly allocated to the Peanut group (n = 17) and 15 to the Almond group (n = 15) in a parallel design. The patients consumed a LCD with part of the starchy staple food being replaced with peanuts (Peanut group) or almonds (Almond group). The follow-up duration was three months. The indicators for glycemic control, other cardio-metabolic, and inflammatory parameters were collected and compared between the two groups. Twenty-five patients completed the study. There were no significant differences in the self-reported dietary compliance between the two groups. Compared with the baseline, the fasting blood glucose (FBG) and postprandial 2-h blood glucose (PPG) decreased in both the Peanut and Almond groups (p < 0.05). After the intervention, no statistically significant differences were found between the Peanut group and the Almond group with respect to the FBG and PPG levels. A decrease in the glycated hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) level from the baseline in the Almond group was found (p < 0.05). However, no significant difference was found between the two groups with respect to the HbA1c level at the third month. The peanut and almond consumption did not increase the body mass index (BMI) and had no effect on the blood lipid profile or interleukin-6 (IL-6).In conclusion, incorporated into a LCD, almonds and peanuts have a similar effect on improving fasting and postprandial blood glucose among patients with T2DM. However, more studies are required to fully establish the effect of almond on the improvement of HbA1c.