Eating nuts helps lower total cholesterol and “bad” LDL cholesterol, and improves the ratio of total cholesterol to “good” HDL cholesterol, a study reports.
“Nuts are rich in unsaturated fats, and that is a main driver in lowering cholesterol,” said the lead author, Dr. Joan Sabaté, a professor of nutrition at the School of Public Health at Loma Linda University in California. “They are the richest source of protein in the plant kingdom, and they also contain fiber and phytosterols, which compete with cholesterol to be absorbed. All these nutrients have been demonstrated to lower cholesterol.”
The effect was most pronounced among people with higher LDL cholesterol to begin with and among those who were not obese. Eating just 2.4 ounces of nuts of any kind was associated with declines of 10.2 milligrams per deciliter in bad cholesterol, a drop of about 7.4 percent, and 10.9 milligrams in total cholesterol, or 5.1 percent.
Sources: NYTimes
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