Eating Walnuts Can Help Women Age Better: Study
Weekly Servings of Walnuts Can Have Lasting Health Benefits
A recent study showed that women who ate walnuts one to two times on a weekly basis are more likely to be independent of care when they become elderly. This comprehensive and long-term study was conducted by a team of researchers led by Francine Grodstein. It involved 54,762 nurses over a 30-year span and published in the Journal of Nutrition.
Healthy Diet Reduces Health Impairment Risks
The paper stressed that overall diet quality provides a greater impact than individual foods on limiting physical function impairment risks. A good diet that can achieve this includes eating more fruits and vegetables, drinking less sugar-sweetened beverages, eating less sodium and trans-fat as well as drinking alcohol moderately.
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In addition, eating more of the following foods can help reduce impairment risks during old age: walnuts, leaf or romaine lettuce, pears, apples, orange and orange juice.
The results of this study confirm the benefits of eating walnuts as revealed in previous studies. In particular, walnuts have a huge amount of antioxidants that help combat free radicals responsible for damaging cells in our bodies, resulting in diseases.
Why Walnuts are Healthy
Walnuts contain a huge number of an antioxidant called polyphenol. In fact, it has two times more polyphenols than cashews, macadamias, pecans, hazel nuts, Brazil nuts, pistachios and peanuts.
According to Joe Vinson, University of Scranton professor of chemistry, "A handful of walnuts contains almost twice as much antioxidants as an equivalent amount of any other commonly consumed nut. But unfortunately, people don't eat a lot of them."
Walnuts also contain alpha-linoleic acid or ALA, which is similar to omega-3 fatty acid but plant-based.
30-Year Span Study
The women who participated in the study were tracked for 30 years. Between 1992 and 2008, participants were interviewed about their overall daily living activities and lifestyle. In this study, the diet of the participants were assessed using a method called the Alternative Healthy Eating Index or AHEI-2010.
Grodstein emphasized that a lot of research has been done about diabetes, heart disease and other health conditions that relate to getting old, but not much attention is given to "research on quality of life and ability to maintain independence with ageing."
Grodstein adds that the results of this study add even more evidence to how a healthy diet helps women improve their well-being.
It remains to be seen whether men will also enjoy a more independent, disease-free old age when they follow the above-mentioned diet. That's because this research is only limited to women. The participants were also only asked about their diet choices; their food intake was not controlled in any way. So it is possible that the respondents may have misreported their diet intake.
