Diet and Nutrition Bulletin

Pistachios are among the most nutritious of nuts you can choose. They offer morefiber in fewer calories than many other varieties, including almonds, cashews, walnuts and macadamias. With healthy fats and satiating qualities, pistachios make a healthy snack.


NUTRITIONALLY DENSE: A 1-oz. serving (~50 kernals) contains 170 calories and as much fiber as a small bowl of oatmeal. They contain high levels of vitamin B6, potassium, magnesium and phosphorous. Pistachios also offer several of the B complex of vitamins, vitamin C, vitamin E, zinc, manganese, selenium and copper.

FAT FACTS: Although pistachios seem high in fat, most of it is the unsaturated variety. Consuming unsaturated fats instead of saturated and trans-fats may help to reduce cholesterol levels.

ARGININE: Pistachios are rich in arginine, a nutrient that is believed to reduce hardening of the arteries. Arginine helps the blood make nitric oxide, which helps keep the artery walls clean.

PHYSTOSTEROLS & ANTI-OXIDANTS: Pistachios also contain phytosterols, compounds found in plants that deter your body from absorbing dietary cholesterol. Pistachios also provide 398 mcg of lutein per 1-oz. serving. Lutein is an antioxidant that helps with eye and skin health and fights free radicals that promote aging.

DIABETIC FRIENDLY: The special antioxidants found in pistachios can prevent a harmful process called glycation. Glycation occurs when sugars bond inappropriately to proteins, making the proteins unusable. This is the process by which diabetes damages tissues, and its products are called AGE or Advanced Glycation End-products. So pistachios can be a powerful ally in the treatment of diabetes and its related syndromes.

*A snack of pistachios and fruit is healthier in every way than a snack of chips, fast food fries.
* Add some ground pistachios to your milkshakes or salads and chaats.

WARNING
Pistachios have many healthy qualities, but they do contain calories. Choosing salted varieties may raise your sodium intake to unhealthy levels. Eat unsalted pistachios in moderation and avoid over-indulging.

Cardiology News

High Blood Pressure May Spark

Facial Nerve Pain

Patients with hypertension appear to carry a higher risk for developing trigeminal neuralgia, a Taiwanese study showed. Through about three years of follow-up, patients with high blood pressure were about 50% more likely to develop trigeminal neuralgia than those with normal BP (HR 1.51, 95% CI 1.19 to 1.90), Shin-Liang Pan, MD, PhD, of National Taiwan University in Taipei, and colleagues reported in the Oct. 25 issue of Neurology. "Our findings therefore provide evidence for a temporal association between hypertension and trigeminal neuralgia," they wrote, adding that "further long-term follow-up study would be required to validate our findings and to investigate the underlying pathophysiologic mechanism." Although the exact cause of trigeminal neuralgia is unknown, there is evidence to suggest that it could be caused by compression of the nerve by a tortuous vessel, which leads to demyelination, according to the researchers. Cerebral vascular tortuosity has been associated with hypertension, they added. Previous studies that have looked into a possible connection between hypertension and trigeminal neuralgia have yielded mixed results, so Pan and his colleagues wanted to explore the relationship using the National Health Insurance claims database in Taiwan, which covers nearly all residents of that country. The analysis included 138,492 adults with at least two ambulatory visits with a principal diagnosis of hypertension compared with 276,984 randomly selected people without hypertension matched by age and sex. Those with trigeminal neuralgia at baseline were excluded. At baseline, the mean age in both groups was 57, and about half of the individuals were female. Hyperlipidemia was more prevalent in the hypertension group (9.7% versus 7.4%, P<0.0001). During a median follow-up of 31.8 months, trigeminal neuralgia developed in 121 patients in the hypertension group and 167 in the control group (0.09% versus 0.06%), a difference that remained significant after adjustment for demographics and medical comorbidities. Pan and colleagues noted in their paper that the most plausible explanation for the relationship is that hypertension is inducing arterial tortuosity, which is compressing the trigeminal nerve and resulting in ectopic excitation and ephaptic transmission. But an additional possibility is that both hypertension and trigeminal neuralgia share a common cause. "Some studies have suggested that vascular compression of the ventrolateral medulla is associated with a subgroup of patients with essential hypertension," the researchers wrote. "It raises a possibility that the link between hypertension and trigeminal neuralgia seen in our study may be attributed to a common etiology, namely, neurovascular compression at the brainstem." Various studies have failed to support that possibility, however. The authors noted that the study was limited by the use of diagnostic codes to determine all diagnoses, the lack of some information regarding risk factors for hypertension, the follow-up time of only three years, and the uncertain generalizability to ethnic groups other than those of Chinese ancestry. The study was supported by the Department of Health, Executive Yuan, Taiwan. Pan reported that he had no conflicts of interest. One of his co-authors serves as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health and on the editorial advisory board of the World Journal of Gastroenterology.

Primary source: Neurology

Source reference:

Pan S-L, et al "Increased risk of trigeminal neuralgia after hypertension: a population-based study" Neurology 2011; 77: 1605-1610.