Effect of Regular Consumption of Tiger Nut (Cyperus Esculentus) on Insulin Resistance and Tumor Necrosis Factor-Alpha in Obese Type 2 Diabetic Egyptian Women,SALWA M. ELSHEBINI, MAHA I.A. MOATY, SALWA T. TAPOZADA, LAILA M. HANNA, HAMED I. MOHAMED and HALA M. RASLAN
Abstract
Objective: In this study we tried to focus on an approach that creates a new insight into the regulation of insulin resis-tance and chronic inflammation through diet therapy in Egyp-tian obese diabetic women.
Subjects and Methods: Twenty eight volunteers partici-pated in a short term study, aging 53.29±1.06 years old, with body mass index (BMI) of 32.76±0.65kg/m2, complied to a balanced hypocaloric diet (800-900kcal/day) for eight weeks. In the first four weeks, a supplement of 30g tiger nut flour cooked with water into a two portions pudding was eaten twice daily, before lunch and dinner. Anthropometric mea-surements and biochemical screening including haemoglobin, serum lipid profile, lipid peroxide [malodialdehydes], fasting and 2 hour postprandial blood glucose, insulin, C-peptide and tumor necrosis factor-a (TNF-a) were performed at the start of the study (basal visit), after the first four weeks at the completion of the supplemented diet period (mid visit), and at the end of the second dietary period (last visit).
Results: A drop of about 2% in weight accompanied by significant reductions of the anthropometric measurements were more pronounced after the first period. There was a significant beneficial rise in high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C) after the first period, which was reversed in response to the diet alone. All the other biochemical parameters were significantly decreased after the first period, except TNF-a which showed only a numerical reduction (–15.01%). Stopping of the supplement was followed by increase in the means of the biochemical parameters that ranged from 2.77 to 48.32%, while TNF-a continued to decrease by –8.17%. This outcome was demonstrated by the correlations between the key param-eters involved in the pathology such as waist to hip ratio (WHR), triglycerides (TG) and TNF-a, and the rest of the parameters, in which all the unfavorable correlations were at the onset of the study. TG concentration also showed significant positive correlations with most of the insulin resistance parameters at all the time of study. TNF-a strongly positively correlated with total cholesterol, low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C) and the calculated risk factor (p<0.01) at the basal examination.
Conclusion: In Egyptian obese diabetic patients there was a strong association between WHR, serum TG and insulin resistance. TNF-a at high concentration was more associated with lipid metabolic disorders and may be responsible with other factors in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) initiation. Hypocaloric diets alone are not adequate to bring about an improvement in the biochemical parameters, and they should be supplemented with appropriate functional foods for the efficiency of such diets.