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While the correct pronunciation of pecans remains a matter of debate, researchers at the University of Georgia have shown that the walnut can dramatically improve a person’s cholesterol level.
Participants at risk for cardiovascular disease who ate pecans during an eight-week intervention showed significant improvements in total cholesterol, triglycerides, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or “bad” cholesterol, in a study by researchers from the UGA College of Family and Consumer Sciences.
“This dietary intervention, when placed in the context of different intervention studies, has been extremely successful,” said Jamie Cooper, a professor in the FACS Department of Nutritional Sciences and one of the study’s authors. “We have had people who went from having high cholesterol at the start of the study to not being in that category after the procedure.”
Researchers found an average drop of 5% in total cholesterol and between 6% and 9% in LDL in participants who consumed pecans.
For background, the researchers referred to a previous meta-analysis of 51 exercise interventions designed to lower cholesterol that reported an average reduction of 1% in total cholesterol and 5% in LDL cholesterol.
“Adding pecans to the diet not only produced a greater and more consistent reduction in total cholesterol and LDL compared to many other lifestyle interventions, but may also be a more sustainable approach to health. long term, ”Cooper said.
“Some research shows that even a 1% reduction in LDL is associated with a small reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease, so these reductions are definitely clinically significant.”
The researchers divided 52 adults aged 30 to 75 at higher risk for cardiovascular disease into one of three groups.
One group consumed 68 grams or about 470 calories of pecans per day as part of their regular diet; a second group replaced pecans with a similar amount of calories from their usual diet, and a control group did not consume pecans.
At eight weeks, participants ate a high-fat meal to determine changes in blood lipids and the amount of glucose, or sugar, in the blood.
Fasting blood lipids showed similar improvements among the two groups of pecans, while post-meal triglycerides were reduced in the group that added pecans. Post-meal blood sugar was lowered in the group that replaced pecans.
“Whether people add them to or replace them with other foods in their diet, we’ve always seen fairly similar improvements and responses in total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol in particular,” said Cooper, who is also director of UGA Obesity Initiative.
Researchers, whose work was published this month in the The Journal of Nutrition– underlined the known bioactive properties of pecans for the possible mechanisms behind the improvements.
Pecans are high in healthy fatty acids and fiber, both of which have been linked to lower cholesterol.
Source: University of Georgia
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