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Eating Nuts Lessens Heart Risk, Study Says
— CHICAGO (Reuters) - Eating a handful of nuts twice or more a week may cut
one's risk of deadly heart disease, based on a study of male doctors released
Sunday.
Nuts and fish are plentiful in the Mediterranean diet, which is known to be
heart-friendly, and many types of nuts are also a healthy source of
unsaturated fats, magnesium and vitamin E, according to the report by
researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.
Dr. Christine Albert examined the nut consumption of more than 21,000 male
doctors participating in the U.S. Physicians' Health Study, which began in
1982, and found a 47 percent lower risk of sudden cardiac death among those
who consumed an ounce of nuts at least twice a week compared to those who did
not eat nuts at all.
She also found a 30 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease death among
the nut eaters. The correlation did not apply for nonfatal heart attacks.
"If the observed associations between dietary habits such as nut and fish
consumption are causal, then these dietary interventions could be applied with
little risk," Albert wrote.
There were 201 sudden cardiac deaths and 566 heart disease deaths among the
study subjects over the 17 years they were tracked.
Copyright 2002 Reuters News Service.
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