The largest study of its kind, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, finds that people who eat a handful of nuts every day live longer than those who do not eat them at all.
Scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Harvard School of Public Health came to this conclusion after analyzing data on nearly 120,000 people collected over 30 years.
The analysis also showed that regular nut eaters tended to be slimmer than those who ate no nuts, putting to rest the notion that eating nuts leads to weight gain.
Senior author Charles S. Fuchs, director of the Gastrointestinal Cancer Treatment Center at Dana-Farber and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, and colleagues also examined how eating nuts or not related to causes of death.
Prof. Fuchs says:
"The most obvious benefit was a reduction of 29 percent in deaths from heart disease - the major killer of people in America. But we also saw a significant reduction - 11% - in the risk of dying from cancer."
Peanuts and tree nuts showed similar effect
The team also found that the reduced risk of death was similar for both nuts that grow on trees, such as cashews and Brazils, and peanuts, which grow under the ground. Other types of tree nut include almonds, hazelnuts, macadamias, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios and walnuts.
No comments:
Post a Comment