Thursday June 11, 2015 (foodconsumer.org) -- Consumption of nuts such as peanuts can help reduce risk of all cause deaths particularly death from cardiovascular disease like ischemic heart disease and ischemic stroke, according to a new medical report in JAMA.
High intake of nuts has already been associated in previous studies with reduced risk of mortality in previous studies. But those studies were mostly conducted among men and women of European descent who had a high socioeconomic status. The current study has found now that the benefit of nut consumption applied also to men and women in other ethnic groups who were relatively poor.
For the current study, HN Luu at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee and colleagues analyzed data from three studies, the Southern Community Cohort Study in the southeastern United States, the Shanghai Women's Health Study and the Shanghai Men's Health Study in China.
The researchers found nut consumption inversely correlated with risk of total mortality in all three cohorts. Among the U.S. cohort, those in the highest quintile of nut intake were 21 percent less likely to die during the follow-up, compared with those in the lowest quintile of nut intake. The risk reduction among the Chinese was 17%.
Eating nuts seemed mostly to benefit heart health. The study showed that in all three cohorts, high intake of nuts was associated with 38% reduced risk of ischemic heart disease, compared with low intake. The risk reduction was 38% among African Americans, 40% among whites, and 30% among the Chinese.
Nut consumption was also associated with significantly reduced risk of ischemic stroke (23%) and hemorrhagic stroke (23%), but only among the Chinese.
Overall, the nut-mortality correlation was similar for both men and women and for blacks, whites and Asians regardless of metabolic conditions at baseline.
The major nut consumed by participants in these studies was peanuts.
These studies were not trials and a causal relation between nut consumption and risk of all cause deaths has not been established in the study. However, it is possible that eating nuts benefits cardiovascular health.
Eating nuts may potentially reduce intake of other foods with unstable polyunsaturated fatty acids and harmful trans fat. Polyunsaturated fat can be converted into trans fat at high temperature. Intake of trans fat has been known to increase risk of cardiovascular death.
Another recent review published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition too finds similar conclusions that eating nuts may reduce risk of deaths from all causes, cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Another study in Annual Review of Nutrition suggested that eating a Mediterranean diet which is high in nuts can protect against cardiovascular disease.
By David Liu
Comments