Eat more Walnut for healthy heart and Lowering Cholesterol

Eat more Walnut for healthy heart and Lowering Cholesterol

This is my 5th blog on health benefits of Walnut. In this blog you will see many health benefits of Walnut.

 

What are Walnuts?

Walnuts are part of the tree nut family. This food family includes Brazil nuts, cashews, hazelnuts (filberts), macadamia nuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachios and walnuts.

Many health Benefits of Walnuts

Source of phenols

Researchers are convinced—more than ever before—about the nutritional benefits of walnuts when consumed in whole form, including the skin. We now know that approximately 90% of the phenols in walnuts are found in the skin, including key phenolic acids, tannins, and flavonoids. Some websites will encourage you to remove the walnut skin—that whitish, sometimes waxy, sometimes flaky, outermost part of shelled walnuts. There can be slight bitterness to this skin, and that's often the reason that websites give for removing it. However, we encourage you not to remove this phenol-rich portion.

Source for vitamin E

The form of vitamin E found in walnuts is somewhat unusual, and particularly beneficial. Instead of having most of its vitamin E present in the alpha-tocopherol form, walnuts provide an unusually high level of vitamin E in the form of gamma-tocopherol. Particularly in studies on the cardiovascular health of men, this gamma-tocopherol form of vitamin E has been found to provide significant protection from heart problems.

Good fiber source

Most U.S. adults have yet to discover the benefits of walnuts. A recent study has determined that only 5.5% of all adults (ages 19-50) consume tree nuts of any kind! This small percentage of people actually do a pretty good job of integrating tree nuts (including walnuts) into their diet, and average about 1.25 ounces of tree nuts per day. But the other 94.5% of us report no consumption of tree nuts whatsoever. In a recent look at the nutritional differences between tree nut eaters and non-eaters, researchers have reported some pretty notable findings: on a daily average, tree nut eaters take in 5 grams more fiber, 260 milligrams more potassium, 73 more milligrams of calcium, 95 more milligrams of magnesium, 3.7 milligrams more vitamin E, and 157 milligrams less sodium!

Antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits

Many of us can go local for our supply of walnuts. According to the latest trade statistics, 38% of all Phytonutrient research on the antioxidant and anti-inflammatory benefits of walnuts has moved this food further and further up the ladder of foods that are protective against metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular problems, and type 2 diabetes. Some phytonutrients found in walnuts—for example, the quinone juglone—are found in virtually no other commonly-eaten foods. Other phytonutrients—like the tannin tellimagrandin or the flavonol morin—are also rare and valuable as antioxidants and anti-inflammatory nutrients. These anti-inflammatory and antioxidant phytonutrients also help explain the decreased risk of certain cancers—including prostate cancer and breast cancer—in relationship to walnut consumption.

New Research- Walnuts and Walnut Oil Benefit Heart Health Beyond Lowering Cholesterol

 

The investigating team, comprising researchers from Penn State, Tufts University and University of Pennsylvania, writes about its findings in a paper due to appear in the 1 June print issue of the Journal of Nutrition, a version of which is already available online. Senior author Penny Kris-Etherton, Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at Penn State, says in a statement, "We already know that eating walnuts in a heart-healthy diet can lower blood cholesterol levels.

But, until now, we did not know what component of the walnut was providing this benefit. Now we understand additional ways in which whole walnuts and their oil components can improve heart health," she adds. For the study, Kris-Etherton and colleagues randomly assigned 15 volunteers to one of four treatments, each comprising an "acute" or one-time comsumption of whole walnuts (85 gms), their skin (6 gms), defatted nutmeat (34 gms), or oil (51 gms). The volunteers were healthy overweight and obese adults with moderate hypercholesterolemia (high blood cholesterol).

They underwent a number of biochemical and physiological tests, both before ingestion and at various times after (30 minutes, one hour, two hours, four hours and six hours after).

The study was a cross-over study, so each volunteer eventually underwent all four treatments, and the associated tests. The test results showed that a one-time consumption of walnut oil boosted blood vessel functioning. Also, consumption of whole walnuts helped "good cholesterol" (HDL) transport and remove excess cholesterol from the body more effectively. First author Claire Berryman, a graduate student in nutritional sciences at Penn State, says the results suggest after a meal containing walnut oil, blood vessels perform better, "which is very important given that blood vessel integrity is often compromised in individuals with cardiovascular disease". She explains that the walnut oil was particularly good at preserving the function of the cells that line the walls of blood vessels, the endothelial cells, which play an important role in cardiovascular health. Speculating on which compounds may be involved, the researchers point to the alpha-linolenic acid, gamma-tocopherol and phytosterols in walnuts. Alpha-linolenic acid is a type of omega-3 fatty acid found in plants. Gamma-tocopherol is a major form of vitamin E found in many plant seeds, and phytosterols are cholesterol-like molecules found in plants that can lower cholesterol levels.

Berryman says although further studies now need to confirm these findings, especially as the "science around HDL functionality is very new", they imply we need to improve dietary advice for avoiding heart disease. Kris-Etherton agrees, and says more studies are also needed to find out exactly what the underlying mechanisms might be that tie walnut consumption to lowering of cardiovascular risk. But in the meantime,"Our study indicates that simple dietary changes, such as incorporating walnuts and/or their oil in a heart healthy diet, may reduce the risk of heart disease. In 2010, researchers also found that a diet rich in walnuts and walnut oil may prepare the body to deal better with stress.

(Source- Journal of Nutrition)