Are you ready to go nuts over the latest health hack to fight heart disease? Substituting almonds for a carbohydrate-rich snack can help raise your levels of “good cholesterol,” or HDL, which can protect you from heart disease.
In a new study published in the Journal of Nutrition, researchers fed 49 participants who had high LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, the same food for six weeks, which included a banana muffin for a snack. For a second six-week period, the participants ate the same diet except for the banana muffin, which they replaced with 1.5 ounces of almonds. Researchers found that participants’ HDL levels increased after swapping the banana muffin for almonds, even though everything else that the participants consumed during this second period was identical to what they ate during the first six weeks .
Even the participants’ alpha-HDL particles—the mature stage of HDL, when particles are larger and can function better—went up by 19 percent and improved their function by about 6 percent. Larger particles can pull cholesterol from the body and transport it to the liver for elimination, so having them is crucial for preventing heart disease. If cholesterol stays in your blood, it can create plaque buildup that can potentially narrow your arteries and cause blockages that can increase your chances of having a heart attack .
Eating vegan, or plant-based, foods is a simple way to protect your heart—they don’t have any cholesterol, because plants don’t have a liver to produce it with. Eating cashews has also been linked to having lower total cholesterol, as well as lower LDL cholesterol . A study of 198 patients with cardiovascular disease who were put on a diet free of meat, dairy “products,” fish, and added oils concluded that of the 89 percent of participants who followed the diet, 81 percent had improved symptoms and experienced few complications from heart disease. Those participants also lost an average of 18.7 pounds, and 22 percent of them saw a complete reversal of their heart disease .
It’s impossible to deny the hearty benefits of enjoying vegan foods. A study published online in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that replacing 5 percent of one’s fat intake from dairy “products” with an equal amount of vegetable fats or polyunsaturated fats decreased heart disease risk by 10 percent and 24 percent, respectively . In fact, coronary artery disease is almost nonexistent among people in cultures with plant-based diets, including the Papua New Guinea highlanders, the Tarahumara of northern Mexico, and rural communities in China and central Africa. When these cultures adopt animal-based diets, the people quickly develop heart disease .
Open your heart to safeguard it. By choosing to fuel your body with vegan foods, you’re sparing animals a life of suffering on factory farms and a terrifying death as well as protecting your health and the environment.
