Nuts can lower cholesterol, study finds
17 May 2010
Eating nuts can substantially reduce cholesterol levels and could offer a cheap and effective strategy for reducing heart disease risk.
Spanish researchers have found that eating just 67 g of nuts a day reduced total cholesterol levels by 5.1 per cent and LDL cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein cholesterol — the ‘bad’ type of cholesterol) by 7.4 per cent (Arch Intern Med 2010; 170: 821-27).
People with a lower body mass index (BMI) and those with the highest baseline LDL cholesterol levels reaped the greatest benefits, the pooled analysis of 25 trials showed. Moreover, the cholesterol-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 3 Australian studies, provided data from 583 men and women. Individual studies ranged from 3 to 8 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 cholesterol-lowering benefits. Overall, nut consumption improved total cholesterol levels by a mean of 0.28 mmol/L and LDL cholesterol by 0.26 mmol/L.
Nuts also improved the LDL cholesterol to HDL cholesterol ratio by 0.22 (8.3 per cent) and the total cholesterol to HDL cholesterol ratio by 0.24 (5.6 per cent). (HDL cholesterol — high-density lipoprotein cholesterol — is the ‘good’ type of cholesterol.)
However, nut consumption did not significantly affect HDL cholesterol or triglyceride levels, except in those with high triglycerides at baseline. (Triglycerides are another type of fat in the blood.)
“Our findings confirm the results of epidemiological studies showing that nut consumption lowers coronary heart disease [CHD] 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.
Last Reviewed: 17 May 2010
- 1. Sabaté J, Oda K, Ros E. Nut consumption and blood lipid levels. A pooled analysis of 25 intervention trials. Arch Intern Med 2010; 170(9): 821-827. Abstract available at: http://archinte.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/short/170/9/821
