Nuts and Weight Loss
Weight Loss Diet & Nuts
The perception was that nuts were fattening and were not suitable for
people on a weight loss diet. And in the early '90s, fat was bad. Even
the American Dietetic Association was recommending nuts only for weight
gain.
Weight Loss Research & Nuts
By 1996, U.S. nut sales had dropped almost 40 percent. Then came the weight
loss research. Researchers started showing how people who regularly eat
nuts appear to have lower cholesterol levels, decreased risk of heart
disease and that nuts can satisfy appetites without causing weight gain.
Nut sales increased again.
Weight Loss Research - Nuts & Fat
Several studies demonstrated that the fat in nuts isn't "bad"
fat. A 1999 weight loss study from Pennsylvania State University, for
example, found that people who adhered to a weight-loss diet high in unsaturated
fats (provided by peanuts, which is technically a legume, and peanut butter)
lowered their total cholesterol by 11 percent and their low-density lipoprotein,
or bad, cholesterol by 14 percent. The diet contained 35 percent of calories
from fat, but because the fat was mostly unsaturated, the subjects lost
weight and lowered their cholesterol in levels similar to a group on a
diet containing less than 20 percent of calories from fat.
Nuts- Medicinal Effect
Scientists now suggest that the complete chemical structure of many nuts
- unsaturated fat, protein, fiber and such antioxidant vitamins and minerals
as vitamin E and magnesium - has a medicinal effect. Nuts also contain
a substance called resveratrol, which is increasingly thought to have
antioxidant and anticancer properties.
Source: LA Times, Oct 2003
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