Mounting evidence suggests that eating nuts and seeds daily can lower your risk of diabetes and heart disease and may even lengthen your life.

If your idea of healthy eating was formed a few decades ago, it may be hard to shake the notion that you should avoid nuts, which are high in calories and fat. But new evidence has overturned that assumption. In fact, a recent analysis of the nation’s eating habits and health outcomes suggests that eating too few nuts and seeds is associated with an increased risk of dying from cardiovascular disease or diabetes.

 

 

For that study, in the March 7, 2017, Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from the Tufts Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy relied on a model that used data from scores of observational studies on diet and health, including the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, which provided detailed information on Americans’ eating habits over the decade ending in 2012. They estimated that in 2012, over 300,000 deaths from heart disease, stroke, or type 2 diabetes — about 45% of all deaths from those conditions were associated with eating either too much or too little of 10 nutrients.

 

Extensive research has been carried out on nuts and health outcomes during the last two decades since publication of a report from the pioneering Adventist Health Study showing an association of nut consumption with a lower risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) in 1992 , shortly followed by the seminal clinical trial of Sabaté et al. demonstrating that a diet enriched with walnuts reduced serum cholesterol levels compared to a standard healthy diet. The interested reader will find complete information regarding research published up to 2005 on nuts and health outcomes in a recent monograph and up to 2007 in the proceedings of a Symposium on Nuts and Health held at the U.S. Department of Agriculture Research Laboratory in the University of California at Davis .

 

By definition, tree nuts are dry fruits with one seed in which the ovary wall becomes hard at maturity. The most popular edible tree nuts are almonds (Prunus amigdalis), hazelnuts (Corylus avellana), walnuts (Juglans regia), and pistachios (Pistachia vera). Other common edible nuts are pine nuts (Pinus pinea), cashews (Anacardium occidentale), pecans (Carya illinoiensis), macadamias (Macadamia integrifolia), and Brazil nuts (Bertholletia excelsa). The consumer definition also includes peanuts (Arachis hypogea), which botanically are groundnuts or legumes but are widely identified as part of the nuts food group. In addition, peanuts have a similar nutrient profile to tree nuts . Although chestnuts (Castanea sativa) are tree nuts as well, they are different from all other common nuts because of being starchier and having a different nutrient profile. For the purpose of this review, the term “nuts” includes all common tree nuts [with the exception of chestnuts] plus peanuts.