Love Your Heart with Nuts and Seeds

Good things do indeed come in small packages! Nuts and seeds are often overlooked as important health foods, but they pack a mighty punch fighting disease, including the nation’s number one killer, heart disease. If you are worried that nuts and seeds are too fattening to be included in your diet, you shouldn’t. While you should definitely avoid eating nuts to excess, adding nuts to the diet helps with  weight maintenance and can improve insulin sensitivity, which could help prevent or reverse diabetes.¹ One to one and a half ounces daily is usually appropriate for women trying to lose weight and about 1.5 to 2 ounces for overweight men. Slim, physically active people who can use extra calories can eat nuts in larger amounts.

Food for Thought

Eating five or more servings of nuts per week is estimated to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by 35%,²  protects against sudden cardiac death, reduces blood cholesterol and inflammation, aids in weight loss and improves insulin sensitivity. Consider the following benefits when deciding to add nuts and seeds to your diet:

• Daily nut consumption is associated with longevity. In an analysis of studies that lasted at least 5 years, each daily serving of nuts was associated with a 39% reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease and a 27% reduction in risk of death from all causes.³
• Eating nuts and seeds with leafy greens can enhance the body’s absorption of fat-soluble nutrients like lycopene and beta-carotene from the greens.⁴ Therefore, a nut-based dressing is a good way to acquire more nutrients from you salads.
• Nuts and seeds help to lower LDL cholesterol,⁵ in part because they are rich in plant sterols, which promote removal of cholesterol from the digestive tract.
• Studies have found that adding nuts to the diet improves vascular function.^{6, 7}
• Nuts and seeds supply their own spectrum of nutrients including fiber, tocopherols (vitamin E), folate, minerals, and antioxidants. ^{8, 9}

Despite being high in calories, including nuts in one’s diet is associated with a smaller waist circumference and a reduced risk of obesity.^{10, 11}

• Nuts may also help to prevent cancer and type 2 diabetes, and maintain brain health with age. ^{12, 13}

 Guide to Properties of Nut and Seed Varieties

Be sure that any nuts you eat are unsalted and raw, or lightly toasted. Roasting nuts lessens their nutritional value and allows acylamide to form, a potentially harmful carcinogen.

• Almonds are rich in antioxidants, allowing them to reduce markers of oxidative stress and oxidation of LDL cholesterol.^{14, 15}
• Walnuts are especially rich in phenols (a class of antioxidants).^{15, 16}There is evidence that walnuts may protect the brain from inflammation, helping to maintain good cognitive function.¹⁷
• Pistachios and Mediterranean pine nuts have the highest plant sterol content of all the nuts, phytochemicals that help to lower cholesterol levels.
• Mediterranean pine nut phytochemicalshave been shown to curb appetite by increasing hormones that produce satiety signals.¹⁸
• Flaxseeds have been found in many clinical trials to reduce systolic and diastolic blood pressure.¹⁹
• Flax, hemp, and chia seeds and walnuts are extremely rich sources of the omega-3 fatty acid ALA. a precursor of DHA and EPA, which are beneficial for heart and brain health.
• Pumpkin seedsand sesame seeds are especially rich in the minerals zinc and iron and sesame seeds are also very high in calcium.
• Chia seeds are a source of soluble fiber, which helps to reduce cholesterol levels.
• Flax, chia and sesame seeds are rich in lignans, plant estrogens that protect against breast cancer.

Other Sources:

https://www.drfuhrman.com/library/reverse_heartdisease.aspx

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29145952

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