Machine learning models were able to tease out some of the metabolite components in walnuts that are potentially linked to reduced risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.
“Walnut consumption is associated with lower risk of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease,” the researchers wrote. “However, it is unknown whether plasma metabolites related to walnut consumption are also associated with lower risk of cardiometabolic diseases.”
The researchers sought to highlight the metabolites associated with the consumption of walnuts and their associations with the risk for type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The analysis included 1,833 participants from the PREDIMED study who were at high cardiovascular risk at study baseline (57% women in the study population). Of these patients, 1,522 had metabolic data available, comprising an internal validation cohort. The research team performed plasma metabolomics analysis and, using elastic net continuous regression analysis, cross-sectional analyses of the links between 385 known metabolites and the consumption of walnuts. The also performed a 10-cross validation procedure and assessed Pearson correlation coefficients to identify the associations between weighted metabolite models and self-reported walnut consumption. They also used Cox regression models to estimate prospective associations between the study subject metabolite profile and incident type 2 diabetes.
© 2025 Mashup Media, LLC, a Formedics Property. All Rights Reserved.