Nuts are my favorite snack. I eat them every day. I love the taste and I love that they are helping me be heart healthy.
I’m here to help motivate you to make eating nuts part of your daily routine.
They are sooooo good for you. When I think of “food as medicine”- I first think of nuts. I bring a bag of nuts to work everyday. I mix up the type of nut and even add-in super healthy seeds. I primarily stick to almonds, walnuts, pistachios and pecans. I almost always also have a bag of red grapes and an apple with me as well.
Outside of fruits and nuts, practically every other snack you can possibly consider either is bad for you or has no nutritional value.
MOVE TO NUTS. Not moving to nuts is just plain……. well, nuts!!
Walnuts are my favorite nut- they are tasty, “meaty”, filling and ridiculously healthy.
Here I will dive into some of the details about which nuts to eat, how they affect your cardiovascular system and review some of the great clinical research that shows the benefits of eating nuts.
I admit, I love big review papers from respected journals and authors. This review paper is a must read if you want to dive into some science and details: Nuts and Cardiovascular Disease Outcomes: A Review of the Evidence and Future Directions, Nutrients, Feb 2023.
Nuts to Love: My Top Choices
Let’s focus on tree nuts. They are all good for you so just find what fits your taste and go for it! Tree nuts include almonds, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, pistachios, Brazil nuts and macadamia nuts.
Many of these are actually drupes and peanuts are legumes, not technically nuts. For our purposes, however, they all have similar nutritional values.
What is a Nut?
OK, I am going to flip you out here. A nut is a FRUIT!!
Nuts are Fruits
A nut is a fruit with a hard shell protecting its tasty kernel- that you eat. Many foods that we call nuts are not nuts but truly dry drupes, including pecans, almonds, and cashews. Peanuts are not tree nuts but legumes.
It turns out that my 3 favorite “nuts” (almonds, walnuts and pecans) are actually drupes- who knew? I am not going to get into the details of the differences between nuts, drupes and legumes- unless you are a botanist, I suggest you keep it at a high level too!
Nut Test- Are the following a nut, drupe, seed or legume?
Hazelnut? Almond? Acorn? Cashew? Walnut? Sweet Chestnut? Pecan? Peanut? Pistachio? Macadamia? Pine Nut? Brazil Nut?
Eating Nuts Saves Lives
There is a ton of great data available on how nuts are good for you. I am just going to jump to some of the highlights.
If you eat nuts most days you have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease and death from cardiovascular disease. This data is REAL. This is not just looking at 12 people in a controlled setting that ate more nuts. This is looking at hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world over many years in multiple large clinical trials.
Most of these trials used considered high nut intake = 20- 28 g/day (it’s a nice handful of nuts).
Higher vs No or Low Nut Consumption leads to:
19% less incidence of cardiovascular disease
25% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease
18% lower risk of dying from a stroke
15% lower risk of developing atrial fibrillation
Dose related significant lowering of bad cholesterol- LDL and apoB
Improved markers of glycemic control: including lower HbA1c and fasting glucose levels
Improved endothelial function (the inner lining of your arteries)
Of note- Peanut butter showed no benefits (darn it!!)
Of note- some trial showed minimal stroke benefit and it was believed to be due to the salt added to some nuts which can increase blood pressure and risk for stroke
Replacing unhealthy foods with nuts showed the greatest reduction in the risk of dying from heart disease
4.4 million deaths across the globe could be attributable to eating < 20 g/day.
Nuts as Part of a Healthy Diet
Eating nuts alone is good but making nuts part of a heart healthy diet plan is amazing!
I will be doing some deep dive posts on the most health types of dietary eating patterns. Here are a few that also preach regular regular nut intake: Mediterranean, DASH, Nordic and Portfolio diets. All of these diets have data showing big improvements in cardiovascular outcomes.
Predimed Trial: In this trial, over 7000 high-risk individuals for CVD were randomly assigned to a Mediterranean diet supplemented with either extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) or mixed nuts or the control diet. After 5 years, both the Mediterranean diet groups supplemented with EVOO and nuts had a 30% reduction in CV events.
How Do Nuts Make You Healthy?
Just think of each nut that you eat like a pill you were prescribed to help your heart health. OK, so what is in this “pill” that is going to help you.
Nuts are PACKED FULL of healthy stuff.
Nuts have a diverse mix of healthy macro and micronutrients. Nuts are low carb fruits that are high in fats, proteins, minerals and vitamins. Nuts are an ESSENTIAL source of omega-3 fatty acids and unsaturated fats.
They have healthy fats- monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids. They have fiber, magnesium, tocopherols, tocotrienols, phytosterols, sphingolipids, carotenoids, chlorophylls, flavonoids, phenolic acids, stilbenes and lignans that all contribute to their cardiovascular health promoting benefits.
I really have no idea how some of thie micronutrients work (sphingolipids??) but in general increased nut intake leads to lower LDL cholesterol, lower ApoB cholesterol, lower levels of inflammation, less weight and better markers of glycemic control-> all leading to their beneficial cardiovascular effects.
Summary of things in nuts to help your heart: omega-3 fatty acids, monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats, fiber and polyphenols like flavanoids.
Nuts also must fill you up. Eat nuts and you will start avoiding the other bad snacks you normally eat. I eat nuts intermittently starting at 10am (to get my 16 hours of overnight fasting in) and then I only want/need a small and healthy lunch.
Technically speaking nuts have a satiating effect and additionally just the increased effort and time of eating helps you from over eating.
Conclusions
It’s time to start eating nuts every day. A couple of hanfuls of day will work. Some helpful thought to leave you with:
Take a mixed bag of nuts to work and munch on throughout the day.
Mix and match your favorites.
I get one bag of salted nuts and mix it in with a bunch of unsalted bags of nuts to limit the salt I am taking in (but I do like a small amount of salt at times).
Nuts taste great and keep you full.
Eating nuts helps keep you from eating other less healthy foods.
Nuts lower your risk of heart attacks, atrial fibrillation, strokes and death from heart disease!!
Nuts are a great start→ Make nuts part of your bigger picture heart healthy diet with a Mediterranean style diet or DASH diet.
The summary graph below shows the benefits of nuts in clinical trials.
