Nuts instead of carbs may aid diabetes control: Study

NEW YORK - Replacing that daily muffin with a handful or two of nuts may help people with diabetes better control their blood sugar and cholesterol levels, according to a study.

When people with type 2 diabetes replaced some of their usual carbohydrates with about a half-cup of mixed nuts each day, their blood sugar and "bad" cholesterol levels dipped slightly over three months, researchers wrote in the journal Diabetes Care.

By contrast, no such improvements were seen among people who swapped their normal carbs for a daily whole-wheat muffin.

While the findings don't mean that nuts are the key to diabetes control, they can be part of a healthy diet, said Cyril Kendall of the University of Toronto in Canada, one of the researchers involved.

Nearly 350 million diabetics worldwide: Study

LONDON - THE number of adults worldwide with diabetes has more than doubled in three decades, jumping to an estimated 347 million, a new study says.

Much of that increase is due to ageing populations - since diabetes typically hits in middle age - and population growth, but part of it has also been fuelled by rising obesity rates.

With numbers climbing almost everywhere, experts said the disease is no longer limited to rich countries and is now a global problem. Countries in which the numbers rose fastest include Cape Verde, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Papua New Guinea, and the United States.