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Added: 6/10/2010
A new review from Loma Linda University in California has added to the body of evidence suggesting that eating nuts may help lower cholesterol and contribute to heart health.
The research, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, examined data from 25 different studies that looked at nut consumption of 583 people and its relationship to cholesterol levels. It found that eating an average of 2.4 ounces (67 g) of nuts a day reduced total cholesterol by an average of five percent, LDL (low-density lipoprotein, or "bad") cholesterol by seven percent and improved the ratio of LDL and HDL (high-density lipoprotein, or "good") cholesterol.
Co-author of the report and chair of Loma Linda University’s nutrition department, Dr. Joan Sabate said the review provided “the best evidence yet that eating nuts reduces LDL cholesterol and improves the blood lipids profile.”
The authors wrote that their most significant finding of the study, that heart-health benefits from eating nuts seemed to be dose-related and have the strongest effect on thinner people and those with higher baseline LDL cholesterol.
However, they added that more research was needed to find out why nuts are less effective in lowering the blood cholesterol of obese subjects.
Sabate said that the type of nuts eaten did not seem to make a difference to the overall effect on health. "Nuts are a matrix of healthy nutrients, and the most obvious reason for the cholesterol-lowering effect is their unsaturated fat content," she said. "Nuts also contain fiber, vegetable protein, phytosterols and other antioxidants."
The authors recommended a maximum consumption of three ounces of nuts a day due to their high caloric value.
"Increasing the consumption of nuts as part of an otherwise prudent diet can be expected to favorably affect blood lipid levels (at least in the short term) and have the potential to lower CHD risk," the researchers concluded.
Archives of Internal Medicine 170(9):821-827, 2010
