OBJECTIVETo determine the effects of daily walnut consumption on endothelial function, cardiovascular biomarkers, and anthropometric measures in type 2 diabetic individuals.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSThis study was a randomized, controlled, single-blind, crossover trial. Twenty-four participants with type 2 diabetes (mean age 58 years; 14 women and 10 men) were randomly assigned to one of the two possible sequence permutations to receive an ad libitum diet enriched with 56 g (366 kcal) walnuts/day and an ad libitum diet without walnuts for 8 weeks. Subjects underwent endothelial function testing (measured as flow-mediated dilatation [FMD]) and assessment of cardiovascular biomarkers before and after each 8-week treatment phase. The primary outcome measure was the change in FMD after 8 weeks. Secondary outcome measures included changes in plasma lipids, A1C, fasting glucose, insulin sensitivity, and anthropometric measures.RESULTSEndothelial function significantly improved after consumption of a walnut-enriched ad libitum diet compared with that after consumption of an ad libitum diet without walnuts (2.2 ± 1.7 vs. 1.2 ± 1.6%; P = 0.04). The walnut-enriched diet increased fasting serum glucose and lowered serum total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol from baseline (10.0 ± 20.5 mg/dl, P = 0.04; −9.7 ± 14.5 mg/dl, P < 0.01; and −7.7 ± 10 mg/dl, P < 0.01, respectively), although these changes were not significant compared with those for an ad libitum diet without walnuts. There were no significant changes in anthropometric measures, plasma A1C, and insulin sensitivity.CONCLUSIONSA walnut-enriched ad libitum diet improves endothelium-dependent vasodilatation in type 2 diabetic individuals, suggesting a potential reduction in overall cardiac risk.

Background: Channel current feature extraction methods, using Hidden Markov Models (HMMs) have been designed for tracking individual-molecule conformational changes. This information is derived from observation of changes in ionic channel current blockade "signal" upon that molecule's interaction with (and occlusion of) a single nanometer-scale channel in a "nanopore detector". In effect, a nanopore detector transduces single molecule events into channel current blockades. HMM analysis tools described are used to help systematically explore DNA dinucleotide flexibility, with particular focus on HIV's highly conserved (and highly flexible/reactive) viral DNA termini. One of the most critical stages in HIV's attack is the binding between viral DNA and the retroviral integrase, which is influenced by the dynamic-coupling induced high flexibility of a CA/TG dinucleotide positioned precisely two base-pairs from the blunt terminus of the duplex viral DNA. This suggests the study of a family of such CA/TG dinucleotide molecules via nanopore measurement and cheminformatics analysis.

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