Anxiety is on the increase since the pandemic.
With that often comes overeating.
I once asked a mentor of mine what was the most common complaint he heard from patients. In his 55 years of medical practice.
Without skipping a beat he said, “Why can’t I lose weight?”
So… a critical question becomes, what foods might be helpful to make pushing ourselves away from the table before getting stuffed… easier?
Nuts!
Almonds, walnuts, pistachios, and probably other nuts, turn on “satiety”. By up-regulating satiety or healthy hunger hormones.
New research from the University of South Australia (UniSA) shows that people who ate almonds had improved levels of “appetite-regulating hormones” compared to those consuming a carbohydrate-rich snack bar.
Other research has shown similar results for other nuts.
In human nut research, nut intake affects various hunger hormones.
C-peptide responses were reduced by 47% in the almond group. This hormone mirrors the insulin level produced by the pancreas, and lower levels may increase insulin sensitivity, making the development of diabetes and cardiovascular disease (CVD) less likely.
For instance, satiety-inducing glucagon levels rose by 39%. Pancreatic polypeptide responses that slow digestion and thus food consumption went up by 45%.
And levels of glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide, which regulates a person’s weight and food intake, increased by 18%.
This is not unique to almonds, as previous research has found consuming walnuts or pistachios produces similar results on appetite-regulating hormones.
“Only a handful of studies have previously tested the role of nut consumption in appetite control. Two recent studies with walnuts and pistachios have reported similar findings to our work.
“However, not all studies have reported the beneficial effects of nut consumption on appetite-regulating hormones with different responses, possibly due to differences in study design and the health status of participants in trials.”
– Alison Coates, Ph.D., study author
Appetite is complex.
Hormone input can be very influential on how effectively we push away from the table while still comfortably not totally full.
Nuts are high in fat.
But they have been linked to weight “loss”, not weight “gain”.
A 2021 meta-analysis of seven unique prospective cohorts and 86 randomized-controlled trials suggest that nut consumption is unlikely to contribute to weight gain.
Consistently higher nut intake has been associated with reductions in body weight and body fat.
And now nuts are linked to boosting hormones that make it easier to eat less.
There is a God.
And they like nuts.
Dr. B.
Reference:
Acute feeding with almonds compared to a carbohydrate-based snack improves appetite-regulating hormones with no effect on self-reported appetite sensations: a randomized controlled trial. European Journal of Nutrition (2022) 28 October 2022