Why Eating Walnuts Is Good For Health

Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com – Eating a small portion of walnuts daily is good for health.

Walnuts may not just be a tasty snack, but they may also promote good-for-your-gut bacteria. New research suggests that these “good” bacteria could be contributing to the heart-health benefits of walnuts.

Changes in gut bacteria are also associated with improvements in some risk factors for heart disease.

“Replacing your usual snack, especially if it’s an unhealthy snack with walnuts is a small change you can make to improve your diet.

Substantial evidence shows that small improvements in diet greatly benefit health. Eating two to three ounces of walnuts a day as part of a healthy diet could be a good way to improve gut health and reduce the risk of heart disease,” Kristina Petersen, assistant research professor at Penn State said in a press release.

Previous studies demonstrated that eating whole walnuts daily lowers cholesterol levels and blood pressure.

According to researchers, changes to the bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, also known as the gut microbiome may help explain the cardiovascular benefits of walnuts.

“There’s a lot of work being done on gut health and how it affects overall health,” said Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutrition at Penn State.

“So, in addition to looking at factors like lipids and lipoproteins, we wanted to look at gut health. We also wanted to see if changes in gut health with walnut consumption were related to improvements in risk factors for heart disease.”

Foods like whole walnuts provide a diverse array of substrates, like fatty acids, fiber and bioactive compounds — for our gut microbiomes to feed on. In turn, this can help generate beneficial metabolites and other products for our bodies.”

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The researchers also found that after the walnut diet, there were significant associations between changes in gut bacteria and risk factors for heart disease. Eubacterium eligens was inversely associated with changes in several different measures of blood pressure, suggesting that greater numbers of Eubacterium eligens was associated with greater reductions in those risk factors.

Additionally, greater numbers of Lachnospiraceae were associated with greater reductions in blood pressure, total cholesterol, and non-HDL cholesterol. There were no significant correlations between enriched bacteria and heart-disease risk factors after the other two diets.

Scientists will continue to investigate how walnuts affect the microbiome and other elements of health.

“The findings add to what we know about the health benefits of walnuts, this time moving toward their effects on gut health,” Kris-Etherton said. “The study gives us clues that nuts may change gut health, and now we’re interested in expanding that and looking into how it may affect blood sugar levels.”

Written by Cynthia McKanzie – MessageToEagle.com Staff Writer