Crunch time for eating nuts after lipid-lowering findings

EATING nuts can substantially reduce cholesterol levels and could offer a cheap and effective strategy for reducing cardiovascular risk. Spanish researchers have found that eating just 67 g of nuts a day reduced total cholesterol levels by 5.1% and LDL cholesterol by 7.4 per cent.

EATING nuts can substantially reduce cholesterol levels and could offer a cheap and effective strategy for reducing cardiovascular risk.

Spanish researchers have found that eating just 67 g of nuts a day reduced total cholesterol levels by 5.1% and LDL cholesterol by 7.4 per cent.

People with a lower BMI and those with the highest baseline LDL-C levels reaped the greatest benefits, the pooled analysis of 25 trials showed. Moreover, the lipid-lowering benefits were most pronounced in people consuming Western diets, whereas there was little added benefit for people already eating healthy Mediterranean or low-fat diets.

The analysis, which included three Australian studies, provided data from 583 men and women. Individual studies ranged from three to eight weeks and comprised various dietary interventions with walnuts, almonds, macadamias, hazelnuts, peanuts, pecans and pistachios.

In the final analysis, however, the type of nut had no impact on the lipid-lowering benefits. Overall, nut consumption improved total cholesterol levels by a mean of 10.9 mg/dl and LDL-C by 10.2 mg/dl.

Nuts also improved the LDL-C to HDL-C ratio by 0.22 (8.3%) and the total cholesterol to HDL-C ratio by 0.24 (5.6 per cent).

However, nut consumption did not significantly affect HDL-C or triglyceride levels, except in those with high triglycerides at baseline.

“Our findings confirm the results of epidemiological studies showing that nut consumption lowers coronary heart disease risk and support the inclusion of nuts in therapeutic dietary interventions for improving blood lipid levels and lipoproteins and for lowering CHD risk,” the authors said.

Arch Intern Med. 2010;170:821-27