Hypoglycemia: Walnuts, Almonds, Walnuts, Eat Them All

A regular serving of walnuts five times a week helps stabilize low blood sugar (hypoglycemia), which is essential for good health.

Once your body hits the roller coaster of high and low blood sugar levels, hypoglycemia is not far away. Once you have developed hypoglycemia, the odds are not in your favor for a major illness. The trick is to contain it by naturally balancing blood sugar levels, based on understanding how your body works.

Researchers have found that walnuts appear to build a healthy “skin” around cells, allowing blood sugar to enter easily. The minerals, vitamins, and antioxidants help regulate blood sugar levels, while the fiber and magnesium help regulate insulin levels.

Nuts also keep your appetite in check by being made up of monounsaturated fats, the essential good fats. This is a special advantage for hypoglycemics who often have uncontrolled cravings for low-fiber foods like cakes or sweets.

It is the daily substitution of refined foods for nuts that helps balance sugar levels. The lack of balance is what allows today’s modern killers like heart disease and diabetes to develop.

The researchers studied 84,000 women for 16 years who ate ¼ cup of any type of nut or the equivalent of a tablespoon of peanut butter. These women were 20 to 30 percent less likely to develop diabetes than those who rarely ate nuts.

All nuts, from almonds to pistachios to walnuts, act in the same way on the body’s blood sugar levels because they have almost identical nutritional composition.

The main drawback of all types of nuts is that they simply put on weight faster than almost anything else that is good for you.

Each ounce of nuts contains 165 calories and a tablespoon of peanut butter contains 95 calories. This is very important because no one ever controlled hypoglycemia while gaining weight. In addition, excess weight increases the chances of diabetes, which are already very high if you have hypoglycemia.

To avoid gaining weight when you eat nuts you should replace them with your refined carbohydrates. For example, swap 1/3 cup of low-fiber cereal for a tablespoon of nuts. Or swap ¼ cup of croutons in the salad for a tablespoon of chopped mixed nuts.

The good news is that with careful dietary planning, hypoglycemia does not have to become a debilitating disease, and learning to understand the relationship between low blood sugar and diet is inexpensive and easy.