Walnuts May Help Lower Blood Pressure: Study

Washington, May 2: Here's another reason to add walnuts to your diet. According to a recent study, when combined with meals low in saturated fats, eating walnuts may help lower blood pressure in people who are at risk for cardiovascular disease.

In a randomised, controlled trial, researchers examined the effects of replacing some of the saturated fats in participants' diets with walnuts. They found that when participants ate whole walnuts daily in combination with lower overall amounts of saturated fat, they had lower central blood pressure. Do Nuts Make you Fat? Health Benefits and Everything Else You Should Know About Nuts and Weight Gain.

According to the researchers, central pressure is the pressure that is exerted on organs like the heart. This measure, like blood pressure measured in the arm the traditional way, provides information about a person's risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD).

Penny Kris-Etherton, lead researcher of the study, claims that the study suggests that because walnuts lowered central pressure, their risk of CVD may have also decreased."When participants ate whole walnuts, they saw greater benefits than when they consumed a diet with a similar fatty acid profile as walnuts without eating the nut itself. So it seems like there's a little something extra in walnuts that are beneficial -- maybe their bioactive compounds, maybe the fiber, maybe something else -- that you don't get in the fatty acids alone," said Kris-Etherton.

According to the researchers, walnuts contain alpha-linolenic acid -- ALA -- a plant-based omega-3 that may positively affect blood pressure."We wanted to see if ALA was the major contributor to these heart-healthy benefits, or if it was another bioactive component of walnuts, like polyphenols.

We designed the study to test if these components had additive benefits," said Alyssa Tindall, one of the lead researchers of the study published in the Journal of The American Heart AssociationAs part of the study, the researchers recruited 45 participants with overweight or obesity who were between the ages of 30 and 65. Before the study began, participants were placed on a "run-in" diet for two weeks."

Putting everyone on the same diet for two weeks prior to the start of the study helped put everyone on the same starting plane. The run-in diet included 12 percent of their calories from saturated fat, which mimics an average American diet. This way, when the participants started on the study diets, we knew for sure that the walnuts or other oils replaced saturated fats," said Tindall.

After the run-in diet, the participants were randomly assigned to one of three study diets, all of which included less saturated fat than the run-in diet. The diets included one that incorporated whole walnuts, one that included the same amount of ALA and polyunsaturated fatty acids without walnuts, and one that partially substituted oleic acid (another fatty acid) for the same amount of ALA found in walnuts, without any walnuts.

All three diets substituted walnuts or vegetable oils for five percent of the saturated fat content of the run-in diet, and all participants followed each diet for six weeks, with a break between diet periods. Following each diet period, the researchers assessed the participants for several cardiovascular risk factors including central systolic and diastolic blood pressure, brachial pressure, cholesterol, and arterial stiffness.

The researchers found that while all treatment diets had a positive effect on cardiovascular outcomes, the diet with whole walnuts provided the greatest benefits, including lower central diastolic blood pressure. In contrast to brachial pressure -- which is the pressure moving away from your heart and measured with an arm cuff in the doctor's office -- central pressure is the pressure moving toward your heart.