...about nuts. If you consume a fair amount of nuts and peanuts you are most likely slimmer and healthier than your non-nut eating counterpart.
At least that is the takeaway from two studies that the NY Times highlighted. The results of one of the studies was published this March in JAMA Internal Medicine by researchers at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.
Two other delicious tidbits for my readers looking to stay lean....
•Participants in studies that included nuts in a weight-loss regimen lost more weight and ended up with a smaller waist and less body fat than participants who did not eat nuts.
•Richard D. Mattes of Purdue University and co-authors most often found that adults who eat nuts weigh less than nut avoiders. And children who ate peanuts usually had a lower body mass index than those who did not.
Finally, in a 2013 study in The British Journal of Nutrition, Dr. Mattes and colleagues reported that consuming peanut butter or peanuts for breakfast helps to control hunger, stabilizing blood sugar and reducing the desire to eat for up to 8 to 12 hours.
The positive impacts of nuts on your overall health is potent. Here the Food and Drug Administration states that “Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating 1.5 ounces per day of most nuts as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease.” Two exceptions are macadamia nuts and cashews, which have too much saturated fat to qualify for this claim.
So go ahead and add some nuts to your daily regimen and see if the nut fat satiates your hunger, helping lower your overall body fat like those in the studies.
And please keep in mind, simplicity is key when enjoying the benefits of nuts and peanuts. Honey glazed or chocolate covered or some other sweeten variation is not what was studied. And may negate the benefits the studies found to be positive.
More can be found here in the NY Times article.
A series of studies found that the more nuts people consumed, the less likely they were to die at any given age, across classes and ethnic groups. http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/30/nuts-are-a-nutritional-powerhouse-for-rich-and-poor/?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share