Patriot Health Digest
Pecans could benefit your heart health in a lot of ways, including lowering your cholesterol levels.
We now know that nuts come loaded with tons of extra health benefits, like enhancing the health of your arteries, providing you with important minerals, and possibly lowering inflammation.
It has also been discovered that nuts can help lower your cholesterol levels, which could improve your overall health and wellbeing. And as reported by a new study completed by the University of Georgia Athens and released in the Journal of Nutrition, pecans might have the ability to improve the total cholesterol, triglycerides and low-density lipoproteins, especially in individuals at higher risk for congestive heart failure.
In the study, 52 people who participated were divided into 3 groups over an 8-week time period. The first group had consumed around 470 calories of pecans each day along with their usual diet, the second group had eaten even more pecans by replacing their regular caloric consumption, and the third group was the control group which didn’t eat any pecans at all.
After the 8-week time-period, the first and second groups both had a reduction in non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides.
Although there’s still more research that needs to be completed on this topic, these findings about pecans and heart health are noteworthy. A professor and one of the authors from the research study, Jamie Cooper, said that even the smallest reduction in cholesterol could have an effect on your chances of coronary heart disease.
Health properties of pecans
This research study shows promising results with heart health and pecans, but the specific properties of pecans that help contribute to these results aren’t totally clear.
Nuts in general have been proven to have many health benefits because of their vitamin E, amino acid, potassium, healthy fat, and high fiber content, which can be a potential explanation for what this research found on pecans.
While there is still much more to learn about pecans and the ways in which they effect cholesterol and heart health, we do know they can be a large part of a cholesterol-improving, healthy, diet.
Author: Scott Dowdy
