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almonds

Adding This Simple Snack Can Extend Your Life

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nuts and heart attack
Photo courtesy of heart disease, nut consumption, almonds, walnuts, pecans, pistachios, cashews

Sure–you know that avoiding smoking, exercising regularly and eating lots of veggies and fruits will help you live longer.  But can one simple snack extend your life?

Turns out that if the snack consists of different types of nuts the answer is probably a solid yes.  The benefits of nuts on our long-term health is well-documented.  They protect your brain, they protect against diabetes and they strongly protect your heart.  And the benefits are not isolated to a single type of nut–it seems like every time researchers look at a particular type of nut it shows a protective effect on whatever chronic disease that happens to be in the study.

However, there are a few very important factoids to take into account.

First, raw nuts are the best option.  Absolutely, positively NO added oils.  That means cottonseed oil, peanut oil and any other oil manufacturers try to stuff into the nut container.  These added oils will completely counteract the benefits of the nuts.  Personally, I buy bulk bags of almonds, pecans and walnuts from Costco because their prices on these 3 types of nuts is the lowest you can find.  Then, when Sprouts has other types of nuts on sale, like cashews or hazelnuts, I add them to the mix.  If I’m feeling really rich, I’ll splurge on a pound of macadamia nuts.

Next, I really don’t concern myself over added salt.  The research linking low salt diets and chronic disease is very weak and likely is more due to the presence of high levels of sodium (and low potassium) in processed foods.  Personally, however, I prefer to match my nuts with dark chocolate drops instead of salt to spruce up the experience.

Either way, the addition of nuts to your daily routine is a powerful one.  But just how powerful?  This particular study asked this very question.  It looked at 17,184 residents of Spain over the course of 5 years to see if nut consumption had any effect on the participants risk of dying from any cause (all-cause mortality).  Here’s what they found:

  • Those participants who ate nuts at least twice per week had a 56% lower risk of dying when compared to non-nut consumers.

These are some pretty serious numbers.

This powerful effect of nuts is likely due to several factors present within nuts.  First, they help you avoid snacking on other, less healthy, snacks.  The fat present in nuts (polyunsaturated and monunsaturated) has consistently shown to protect your heart from damage.  Lastly, they are an excellent source of gamma tocopherol–the powerhouse form of vitamin E that has been shown again and again to protect the brain and the heart.

Either way, if you are not already snacking on nuts during a typical week, it’s definitely time to start.

 

Dose Response of Almonds on Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors – (09-12-02)

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Dose Response of Almonds on Coronary Heart Disease Risk Factors

This article yet again confirms the health benefits of raw, whole nuts, but also that the fats within the almond do not work alone. The proteins and fiber within the nut also exhibit beneficial effects. This just points so strongly to the fact that foods, as Mother Nature gave them to us, are infinitely better than super concentrated supplements containing what we believe (for this month, anyway…) to be the active constituent.

Circulation — Abstracts: Jenkins et al. 106 (11): 1327

Read entire article here

DIABETICS SHOULD SNACK ON THESE

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Despite massive amounts of evidence and research on how to avoid and / or eliminate diabetes, the public still isn’t receiving the message.  Sometimes small changes that are incredibly simple can make major improvements.

As an example, avoiding bottled water and switching to tea is a simple change moving from BPA loaded water to polyphenol rich tea.  Avoiding all artificial sweeteners.  Burst type aerobic exercise, even if it is just for 10 minutes a week.

This particular study focuses on the power of almonds to improve diabetes.  The authors took “well controlled” diabetics (I personally hate that phrase–no one is ever “well controlled” if they need medication to get there) and had them eat a single serving of almonds with breakfast 5 days / wk for 4 months.

They found a massive 30% reduction in blood sugar levels and a 4% reduction in HbA1c levels in these patients, which, in some patients, may be enough to reverse the diabetes diagnosis.  Few medications than can do this are without side effects.

These results are even more surprising when you take into account the standardized breakfast that the diabetics ate was bagels, butter and juice–ALL absolute no-nos for diabetics!  Despite the pro-diabetic breakfast, the almonds were still powerful enough to drop HbA1c levels.  How simple is that??

Two things to add..

First, raw or dry roasted almonds only.  Nothing that comes out of a can or has any added oils to them.  Big mistake that many make.  And while this study looked at almonds, I would not be surprised to find many other nuts having similar effects.

Second, chew more.  Several studies have found that by merely chewing food more we get a stronger anti-diabetic effect, especially in almonds.

If you’re diabetic, what are you waiting for?  If you’re not, you should make it a habit anyway..

Read more…

SNACK ON THESE TO PROTECT YOUR BONES

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In previous articles, we’ve learned that osteoporosis is not a static disease of the bone, but is more appropriately termed bone health because it reflects the true dynamic of balance between adding bone and losing bone as well as how bone affects other systems in the body and vice versa.

One of the clear factors in bone health is inflammation.  Inflammation caused by poor quality lifestyle choices (stress, refined carbs, hydrogenated oils, not enough good fats, not enough fruits and veggies, too many calories, etc..) causes bone to make more osteoclasts–the cells that break down bone.  So, more inflammation = more bone loss.

This particular study adds more to the long list of benefits of nuts on our health.  In this particular case, having about 1/4 cup of almonds (60g) suppressed the formation of osteoclasts, which would translate to improved bone health.  Keep in mind that the common osteoporotic drugs like Boniva and Fosamax don’t even do this–they bind up the osteoclast after it’s been made.  Much like the proverbial barn door.

Important factor when buying nuts…NEVER get them with added oils.  Cottonseed, peanut or any other oils should NOT be a part of your nut purchase.  The addition of these oils will completely undo anything you are trying to do with the nuts.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0026049510003008