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| Nuts in the NewsNuts and your heart: Eating nuts for heart health
Eating
nuts helps your heart. Discover how walnuts, almonds and other nuts
help lower your cholesterol when eaten as part of a balanced diet.
By Mayo Clinic staff
Eating
nuts as part of a healthy diet is good for your heart. Nuts, which
contain unsaturated fatty acids and other nutrients, are a great snack
food, too. They're inexpensive, easy to store and easy to take with you
to work or school.
The type of nut you eat isn't that
important, although some nuts have more heart-healthy nutrients and
fats than do others. Walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, you name it, almost
every type of nut has a lot of nutrition packed into a tiny package. If
you have heart disease, eating nuts instead of a less healthy snack can
help you more easily follow a heart-healthy diet.
Can eating nuts help your heart?
Most
studies on people who eat nuts as part of a heart-healthy diet have
found that nuts lower the LDL, low-density lipoprotein or "bad,"
cholesterol level in the blood. High LDL is one of the primary causes
of heart disease, so nuts' ability to lower LDL cholesterol seems to be
quite beneficial.
Eating nuts reduces your risk of developing
blood clots that can cause a fatal heart attack. Nuts also improve the
health of the lining of your arteries. The evidence for the
heart-health benefits of nuts isn't rock solid yet — the Food and Drug
Administration only allows food companies to say evidence "suggests but
does not prove" that eating nuts reduces heart disease risk.
What's in nuts that's thought to be heart healthy?
Although it varies by nut, researchers think most nuts contain at least some of these heart-healthy substances:
Unsaturated
fats. It's not entirely clear why, but it's thought that the "good"
fats in nuts — both monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats — lower
bad cholesterol levels.
Omega-3 fatty acids. Many nuts are also
rich in omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3s are a healthy form of fatty acids
that seem to help your heart by, among other things, preventing
dangerous heart rhythms that can lead to heart attacks. Omega-3 fatty
acids are also found in many fish, but nuts are one of the best
plant-based sources of omega-3 fatty acids.
L-arginine. Nuts also
have lots of l-arginine, which is a substance that may help improve the
health of your artery walls by making them more flexible and less prone
to blood clots that can block blood flow.
Fiber. All nuts contain
fiber, which helps lower your cholesterol. Fiber also makes you feel
full, so you'll eat less later. Fiber is also thought to play a role in
preventing diabetes.
Vitamin E. Researchers still aren't sure, but
it's thought that vitamin E may help stop the development of plaques in
your arteries which can narrow them, leading to chest pain, coronary
artery disease or a heart attack.
Plant sterols. Some nuts contain
plant sterols, a substance that can help lower your cholesterol. Plant
sterols are often added to products like margarine and orange juice for
additional health benefits, but sterols occur naturally in nuts.
What amount of nuts is considered healthy?
Nuts
contain a lot of fat; as much as 80 percent of a nut is fat. Even
though most of this fat is healthy fat, it's still a lot of calories.
That's why you should eat nuts in moderation. Ideally, you should use
nuts as a substitute for saturated fats, such as those found in meats,
eggs and dairy products.
Instead of eating unhealthy saturated
fats, try substituting a handful of nuts. Current guidelines suggest
eating 1 to 2 ounces (28.4 to 56.8 grams, or a small handful) of nuts
each day. But again, do this as part of a heart-healthy diet. Just
eating nuts and not cutting back on saturated fats found in many dairy
and meat products won't do your heart any good.
Does it matter what kind of nuts you eat?
Possibly.
Most nuts appear to be generally healthy, though some more so than
others. Walnuts are one of the best-studied nuts, and it's been shown
they contain high amounts of omega-3 fatty acids. Almonds, macadamia
nuts, hazelnuts and pecans are other nuts that appear to be quite heart
healthy. Even peanuts — which are technically not a nut, but a legume,
like beans — seem to be relatively healthy. Coconut, which is
technically a fruit, may be considered by some to be a nut, but it
doesn't have heart-health benefits. Both coconut meat and oil contain a
large amount of saturated fat.
Keep in mind, you could end up
canceling out the heart-healthy benefits of nuts if they're covered
with chocolate, sugar or salt.
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