Heart attack, stroke, cancer. Scary words. But read on to find out how one tiny change can dramatically reduce your risk of dying of these diseases.
Researchers in Spain studied over 7000 people over the age of 55 years and analysed their diet and health outcomes. They looked at those on low fat diets compared with diets high in nuts, seeds and olive oil. Surprisingly the low fat diet wasn’t the winner here.
The single most impressive finding of this study, and a take home tip for wellness:
Eat a diet that includes around 30 grams (a palmful) of nuts, especially walnuts, just three times weekly and reduce the risk of dying of cardiovascular disease by 55% and cancer by 40%. 1
But it gets better. A November 2013 study linked daily nut intake with a 20% reduced risk of all cause mortality (dying of everything). And the nut eaters were also thinner than their non nutty counterparts. 2
1. Marta Guasch-Ferré, et al. Frequency of nut consumption and mortality risk in the PREDIMED nutrition intervention trial. BMC Medicine, 2013; 11: 164 DOI: 10.1186/1741-7015-11-164
2. Ying Bao, et al. Association of Nut Consumption with Total and Cause-Specific Mortality. New England Journal of Medicine, 2013; 369 (21): 2001 DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1307352