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Effects of Walnut Consumption on Endothelial Function in People with Type 2 Diabetes: a Randomized Pilot Trial

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to obtain preliminary data to test the hypothesis that (1) a 12-week intervention with 28 g/day of walnuts improves endothelial function in people with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) and (2) intake of walnuts improves plasma adipokines after 12 weeks of intervention. In this pilot randomized, single-blinded, controlled trial of 26 adult subjects with prevalent DM, each subject was randomized to a usual diet with 28 g of walnuts per day or usual diet without walnuts (control group). Reactive hyperemia index (RHI), a measure of endothelial function, was measured non-invasively at baseline and after 12 weeks using Endo-PAT2000. We used linear regression to examine the effects of the intervention on RHI. The mean age at baseline was 64.8 ± 11.6 years; 61.5 % of participants were female, and 15.4 % had coronary artery disease. The standard error of RHI was 0.19. The difference in change in RHI during the intervention between the two groups was −0.029 (95 % confidence interval (CI) −0.52, 0.46, p = 0.23). Walnut intervention led to a suggestive increase in adiponectin, albeit non-statistically significant (difference 0.50 μg/ml (95 % CI −0.10, 1.09), p = 0.65). We demonstrated the feasibility of the proposed randomized trial and obtained needed standard deviations to calculate the required sample size to test proposed hypotheses in an efficacy trial.

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Author Contributions

LD conceived of the study, designed the study, collected the data, and drafted the article. LD and BL performed the data analysis. LD, BL, and JMG interpreted the data and revised the article critically for important intellectual content.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Aging, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, 1620 Tremont St, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA, 02120, USA

    Luc Djoussé, Bing Lu & J. Michael Gaziano

  2. Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Luc Djoussé, Bing Lu & J. Michael Gaziano

  3. Boston Veterans Affairs Healthcare System, Boston, MA, USA

    Luc Djoussé & J. Michael Gaziano

Authors
  1. Luc Djoussé
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  2. Bing Lu
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  3. J. Michael Gaziano
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Luc Djoussé.

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Conflict of Interest

Luc Djoussé received investigator-initiated grants from Amarin Parma Inc., Merck, and the California Walnut Commission and has also served as an ad hoc consultant to Amarin Pharma Inc.

Bing Lu declares that he has no conflict of interest.

J. Michael Gaziano declares that he has no conflict of interest.

Human and Animal Rights and Informed Consent

Human rights Each subject signed the informed consent and the study protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Furthermore, the study was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01884363).

Animal rights Not applicable as no animals were used in this study.

Funding Sources

This project was supported by the California Walnut Commission. This work was also conducted with support from Harvard Catalyst, the Harvard Clinical and Translational Science Center (National Center for Research Resources and the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, National Institutes of Health Award UL1 TR001102), and financial contributions from Harvard University and its affiliated academic health-care centers. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of Harvard Catalyst, Harvard University and its affiliated academic health-care centers, or the National Institutes of Health.

Additional information

This trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT01884363).

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Djoussé, L., Lu, B. & Gaziano, J.M. Effects of Walnut Consumption on Endothelial Function in People with Type 2 Diabetes: a Randomized Pilot Trial. Curr Nutr Rep 5, 1–8 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-016-0149-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s13668-016-0149-7

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