Nuts Lower Cholesterol Levels

Your heart might actually benefit from nuts. You think we’re kidding. Well, not really. We have reasons to back this claim! Nuts can dramatically reduce risk of heart disease by dilating blood vessels and preventing any sort of hardening of blood vessels.

Recently, there was research being conducted in order to identify potential reason behind how nuts help in reducing coronary disease and lower cholesterol levels.  The conclusions are quite healthy and revolutionary. The Nurses’ Health Study, for instance, found out that those people who ate five or more ounces of nuts per week cut down risk of developing heart diseases by 35 percent in comparison to those who didn’t.

So, while you try and decide which nuts are healthy for you keep in mind that ideally, they must be high on monounsaturated fats and have lower amounts of saturated fats. High monounsaturated fats actually lower the low density lipoprotein (LDL) or bad cholesterols levels in the blood. You would be quite happy to know that almonds, pistachios and walnuts contain high amounts of unsaturated fats! So, won’t you grab your share?

WHY NUTS ARE HEART HEALTHY?

Researchers say that nuts contain heart-healthy substances that lower cholesterol levels. These include:

• Unsaturated fats: Apparently, and as mentioned above unsaturated fats lower bad cholesterol levels.
• Omega-3 fatty acids: Omega-3 fatty acids help our heart by preventing dangerous heart rhythms which can cause heart attacks. Other than nuts, omega-3 fatty acids are also found in fish.
• L-Arginine: Nuts contain lots of l-arginine that improves health of the artery walls and make them more flexible and less prone to blood clots that block rhythmic flow blood flow.
• Fiber: Nuts are high in fiber content and once we eat nuts we feel much fuller and eat lesser thereafter. Nuts can in this way help in preventing diabetes.
• Vitamin E: It is widely believed, although researchers aren’t still very sure, that vitamin E helps stop plaque sedimentation on our arteries that later constrict them, interrupt the rhythm of blood flow and cause coronary heart disease (CAD)or heart attack. In short, it helps in improving health line of the arteries.

Thus, include nuts which are powerhouse of good nutrition in your diet. In fact, we’d ask you to go nuts!